iAUNTAMITYSiS 
:  -SILVER-  - 

•  WEDDING  - 


AUNT  AMITY'S 
SILVER  WEDDING 


An'  dey  offer  me  fifty  dollars  cash  down 


AUNT  AMITY'S 
SILVER  WEDDING 

AND   OTHER  STORIES 


BY 

RUTH    McENERY   STUART 

AUTHOR  OF  ' '  SONNY,  "  *  *  NAPOLEON  JACKSON,  THE 

GENTLEMAN  OF  THE  PLUSH  ROCKER,"  "A 

GOLDEN   WEDDING,"     "  MORIAH's 

MOURNING,"  ETC. 


Illustrate*) 


NEW  YORK 

THE   CENTURY  CO. 

1909 


Copyright,  1903,  1909,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 

Copyright,  1899,  by  The  Curtis  Publishing  Co. 
Copyright,  1909,  by  The  Butterick  Publishing  Co. 


Published  October,  1909 


THE    DE  VINNE    PRESS 


TO 
MY  BROTHER 

JAMES  A.  McENERY 


CONTENTS 

PAUE 

AUNT  AMITY'S  SILVER  WEDDING  ....  1 

PETTY  LARCENY  " 51 

THE  HAIR  OF  THE  DOG 113 

THANKSGIVING  ON  CRAWFISH  BAYOU                 ,  155 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


'  'An'  dey  offer  me  fifty  dollars  cash  down' '  Frontispiece 

"Butnotdathusban'l" 17 

"Th'ough  de  golden  gate  o'  sunset!"    .     ...  27 

"  Is  you  satisfied  ?" 4,5 

Sweet  soap  was  one  of  Phil's  failings       ....  83 

"  Heah  's  a  few  little  trinkers  I  picked  up  heah 

an'  dar,  but  I  ain't  got  no  locket,  jedge"     .  97 

He  was  three  whole  days  on  the  way      .     .     .     .107 

The  butler 117 

Light  fingers 125 

Filling  the  cook's  chip-basket 131 

"De  ghos'!  Aun'  Charity,  de  ghos'!"     ....  143 

Fishing  for  the  day's  needs 187 

It  ended  by  her  sending  them  all 201 

*' Bless  Gord  fer  freedom — anyhow/"     ....  215 


AUNT  AMITY'S 
SILVER  WEDDING 


AUNT  AMITY'S 
SILVER  WEDDING 


OF  course  Aunt  Amity  would  never 
have  thought  of  such  a  thing  her 
self.  It  was  the  great  silver  wedding  up 
at  Judge  Stanley's  that  put  it  into  her  head. 

The  Stanleys  were  the  richest  people 
along  the  coast,  and  they  lived  in  the  finest 
house,  at  the  top  of  the  highest  hill, — not 
much  of  a  hill,  it  is  true;  but  no  matter, — 
and  when  all  the  lights  were  lit  in  this  man 
sion  of  many  windows,  it  was  a  sight  good  to 
behold  for  miles  around  on  a  dark  night. 

And  the  Stanleys  had  no  end  of  relations 
and  friends, — all  more  or  less  rich, — and 
they  had  always  entertained  extensively,  so 
that  everybody  was  delighted  to  come  and 


4     Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

to  make  a  generous  showing  at  the  silver 
wedding. 

For  a  week  before  the  time,  express  pack 
ages  had  been  coming  in,  and  a  few  belated 
even  for  the  fortnight  following;  for  there 
were  family  connections  across-seas,  and 
silver  cannot  be  flashed  along  with  con 
gratulations  with  or  without  wires,  at  least 
not  yet. 

Of  course  there  was  a  great  banquet  at 
the  judge's  silver  wedding. 

There  were  always  banquets  at  impor 
tant  social  functions  in  the  old  South.  None 
of  your  "butter  thins,"  your  "peanut  sand 
wiches,"  "cheese-straws,"  and  "woman's  ex 
change  kisses,"  the  most  over-feminized, 
inane  refreshment  imaginable — and  tea — 
and  tea — and  tea! 

No,  no.  None  of  this  sort  of  thing,  but 
groaning  mahoganies  and  popping  corks 
and  the  whir  of  ice-cream  freezers  in  action ; 
important  darkies  in  white  linen,  bearing 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding     5 

great  trays :  razor-backed  hams  boiled  in 
champagne;  turkeys,  boned  and  truffled; 
pates  of  native  game ;  and  fruits ;  and  con 
fectionery;  and — and  all  the  rest  of  it— 
great  spirals  of  smoke  out  of  the  kitchen 
chimneys  all  day  and  half  the  night  before ; 
and  sweet-smelly  breezes  down  the  road  for 
half  a  mile  on  a  windy  day. 

The  Stanley  silver  wedding  was  the  talk 
of  three  parishes  for  months  afterward, 
and  the  reports  that  went  abroad, — of  the 
costumes  of  the  guests,  who  came  all  the 
way  from  New  Orleans,  and  of  the  presents, 
and  presents,  and  presents, — well,  some  of 
them  were  hard  to  believe. 

Amity  was  not  one  of  the  Stanley's  for 
mer  slaves.  Indeed,  she  had  come  into  the 
coast  community  only  a  few  years  before 
the  wedding.  She  lived  with  her  little 
husband,  Frank  the  fiddler,  on  a  place 
some  miles  farther  up  the  river,  and  as 
the  affiliations  of  the  two  places  were  with 


6     Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

small  towns  in  opposite  directions,  there 
was  little  or  no  intercourse  between  them. 
And  so  when,  several  months  after  the  big 
wedding,  Amity  announced  that  she  and 
Frank  were  going  to  "give  one,"  it  was  not 
at  all  as  if  she  were  imitating  a  home 
function. 

Any  couple  may  have  a  silver  wedding, — 
any,  that  is,  that  is  qualified, — and  when 
Amity  proclaimed  their  eligibility,  she  and 
Frank  immediately  came  into  a  new  pres 
tige. 

She  was  young  for  her  age,  was  Amity 
— young  for  any  age  which  might  seize  sil 
ver-wedding  honors.  She  lookeJ  thirty- 
three,  and  could  not  have  been  much  over 
forty,  and  while  she  proudly  announced  the 
telltale  approaching  anniversary,  one  could 
not  help  reflecting  how  few  of  our  own  skins 
would  be  willing  to  celebrate  silver  weddings 
at  forty,  if  they  could. 

Although    it   was    the   glow    of   mid-life 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding     7 

which  polished  her  brown  cheek,  Amity 
moved  with  the  alacrity  of  youth,  and  her 
ringing  laughter  was  as  care-free  and  fresh 
as  a  child's.  She  was  so  brown,  so  truly 
chocolate  in  hue,  that  when  she  smiled,  dis 
playing  a  streak  of  white,  it  seemed  that  she 
might  really  be  chocolate,  and  all  cream  in 
side.  If  she  was  forty  years  old  and  over, 
she  had  lived  every  year  of  the  forty,  and 
she  was  glad  of  it. 

She  had  always  been  a  woman  of  initia 
tive,  of  faculty,  and  of  strong  social 
following.  Her  cabin  at  Three  Forks, 
surrounded  on  all  sides  by  a  broad,  floorless 
veranda,  otherwise  "a  shed,"  which  invited 
friendly  weather  protection  for  chance 
guests  without  number  or  stint,  always 
seemed  in  a  sense  typical  of  her  own  gen 
erous  personality.  And  it  had  been  so 
before  she  furnished  it  with  rows  of  little 
pine  tables  upon  which  she  served  cakes 
and  ginger-pop  for  a  price  during  week- 


8     Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

day  summer  afternoons,  with  a  fish-fry 
every  Saturday  night  for  grand  finale. 

She  was  a  famous  cook,  and  her  fish-fries 
were  popular  on  their  own  account,  so  that 
a  good  many  of  the  dollars  paid  out  to  the 
hands  on  Saturdays  floated  into  the  capa 
cious  pockets  of  her  broad  checked  aprons, 
and  thence  to  her  luxury-loving  mate,  Frank 
the  fiddler. 

Still,  prices  were  absurdly  low,  and  it  was 
a  trifling  business  financially,  so  that  she 
had  no  more  saved  at  the  year's  end  than 
had  her  neighbors,  who  handled  so  much  less 
than  she,  and  who  regarded  her  as  a  mon 
eyed  lady  of  affairs.  When  she  said,  in 
answer  to  question,  "Oh,  yas,  certVy  de 
business  pays,"  she  meant  what  she  said. 
Any  enterprise  which  runs  along  without 
debt  pays.  It  pays  its  own  expenses. 

When  she  announced  the  proposed  silver 
wedding,  and  began  sending  out  invitations 
right  and  left,  the  entire  levee-front  for  the 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding     9 

space  of  ten  miles  was  in  a  broad  grin.  Of 
course  everybody  wanted  to  come. 

Amity  rather  intelligently  made  good  her 
claim  as  to  the  date,  explaining  that,  al 
though  the  judge's  lady  would  never  remem 
ber  her,  she  did  distinctly  recollect  when,  as 
Miss  Bettie  Peabody  of  St.  James  Parish, 
she  had  married  the  young  lieutenant  Stan 
ley,  just  back  wounded  from  the  war, — all 
this  was  history, — and  that  a  few  months 
later  she  was  herself  married.  The  date  of 
her  own  wedding  she  might  have  forgotten 
except  that  it  was  April  Fool's  day,  and 
everybody  had  joked  her  and  the  groom, 
wondering  which  might  fool  the  other  by 
failing  to  "show  up"  in  church.  One  can 
understand  how  she  would  never  forget  this. 

Yes,  the  date  seemed  fairly  well  estab 
lished;  but  if  it  had  n't  been,  what  would 
have  been  the  difference? 

When  she  trudged  all  the  way  up  the 
road  to  confer  with  the  mistress  of  Sugar- 


10    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

sweet  Plantation  about  it;  to  enlist  inter 
est,  get  pointers  and  the  support  of  enlight 
ened  approval — she  was  free  now,  and  need 
not  ask  permission, — she  trod  the  levee  sum 
mit  with  an  air  of  fresh  importance,  and  her 
waddle  was  that  of  a  gleeful  duck  with  a 
pond  in  sight,  for  Amity  seemed  never  so 
truly  in  her  element  as  when  she  was  the  cen 
ter  of  social  activity.  Indeed,  it  was  its  so 
cial  aspect  more  than  the  lure  of  the  pennies 
which  had  inspired  her  business  enterprise, 
although  she  herself  probably  did  not  rea 
lize  this. 

The  winds  of  March  were  sharp  and  in 
spiriting,  and  when  they  flapped  the  ends  of 
her  bandana  over  her  ears  as  she  walked, 
she  chuckled  with  very  exhilaration  of  life. 
Indeed,  she  even  laughed,  seeing  the  breadth 
of  her  own  shadow : 

"Nobody,  to  see  dat  wide  shadder,  would 
take  me  for  de  light  dancer  I  is." 

She  had  taken  her  big  palmetto  fan  along 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    11 

with  her, — the  "chu'ch  s'ciety  fan,"  bound 
with  purple  ribbon, — not  that  she  needed  a 
fan  in  the  March  wind,  but  it  helped  her 
along,  temperamentally.  Indeed,  it  did 
really  serve  occasionally  to  ward  off  a  too- 
sharp  gust  which  threatened  her  ears. 

If  her  friend  and  counselor,  the  mistress, 
was  surprised  at  her  announcement,  or 
amused  or  pleased  or  displeased,  she  le 
niently  gave  no  sign.  She  had  often  de 
clared  herself  "used  to  all  the  surprises 
there  were  in  plantation  life  and  ways,"  so 
that  nothing,  no  matter  how  novel,  had 
power  more  than  to  throw  one  of  her  eye 
brows  somewhat  askew,  thus  imparting  a 
quizzical  expression  to  her  otherwise  or 
derly  face  while  she  lent  herself  to  any 
unusual  recital. 

She  let  Amity  tell  her  all  about  it — how 
she  was  going  to  invite  "any  and  all  who 
would  come  wid  a  good  will,  and  a  good 
present  befittin*  de  occasion." 


12    A  unt  A  mity's  Silver  Wedding 

For  a  second  only  she  lost  control  of  her 
eyebrow,  as,  in  reply  to  this,  she  asked : 

"And  do  you  really  expect  everybody  to 
bring  you  a  silver  present,  Amity?  You 
know,  silver  things  are  expensive." 

"Yas  'm,  I  knows  dey  is ;  an'  so  is  fine 
suppers  expensive  an'  I  ain'  gwine  give  no 
scrub  ban-quet.  Dey  ain't  nobody  but  can 
offo'd  to  fetch  some  little  silver  piece — " 

"Such  as  what?" 

"Well,  mostly  dimes  an'  two-bitses 
[quarters]  an'  maybe  fifty-centses ;  an'  it 
mought  be  dat  a  few  would  drap  us  a  dol 
lar.  I  done  give  out  dat  I  ain'  gwine  stint 
de  supper.  I  '11  have  every  kind  o'  cake  dey 
is — an'  fried  chicken — an'  chicken-pie — an' 
chicken  fricassee — an'  chicken-salad — an' 
chick — I  mean  to  say,  an'  swimp  gumbo 
an'  beat  biscuit,  an' — swimps  is  comin'  in 
thick  in  the  river  now." 

"Oh,  I  see ;  certainly.  I  had  n't  thought 
of  money.  I  was  thinking  of — " 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    13 

"You  was  studyin'  about  white  weddin's, 
Missy.  Dat  's  a  white  horse  of  another 
color.  Eh,  Lord!  How  many  th'ough  an' 
th'ough  silver  soup-ladles  an'  tea-sets  you 
reckon  I  'd  git,  ef  I  expected  'em?  No, 
honey;  dis  here  's  gwine  be  jes  a  done-over 
ole  breakdown  weddin',  wid  a'  overdone 
brokedown  bride  an'  groom.  But  we  can't 
be  no  younger  'n  we  is,  an'  hit  's  now  or 
never,  or — " 

Her  own  laughter  broke  the  sentence  here, 
but  in  a  minute  she  had  veered,  and  her 
voice  was  entirely  serious  when  she  asked  : 

"An'  so — is  you  got  air  ole  bride's  veil 
left  over  f'om  past  times — or  wreath — or 
anything  flimsy  an'  white,  please,  ma'am — 
to  set  off  dis  ole  secon'-han'  bride?  An' 
maybe  one  o'  Marse  Honore's  white  waist 
coats  for  Frank — anything,  so  it  's  white, 
for  bofe  of  us — so  's  we  won't  shame  de 
ban-quet.  I  don't  crave  to  disgrace  de  feast 
wid  onproper  weddin'-gyarmints. 


14    Aunt  A mity's  Silver  Wedding 

"An'  maybe  somebody  mought  affo'd  a 
silver  weddin'-ring  for  me, — I  am'  nuver 
had  no  ring,  —  or  no  silver  thimble,  nuther. 
I  sho'  does  hope  dey  '11  fetch  in  a  few  showy 
plush-box  deviltries,  even  ef  de  silver  on 
'em  '11  melt  whilst  you  looks  at  it. 

"I  had  a  silver-plated  soup-dipper,  once-t. 
I  got  it  for  a  tea-prize.  I  nuver  drinks  no 
tea.  I  buys  it  jes  for  de  prize  cowpons — 
an'  trades  it  back  in  de  sto'e  for  tobacco. 

"But  dat  prize  dipper  sho'  did  look 
dazzlin'  when  it  come,  reposin'  in  dat  plush- 
tufted  box.  I  cert'in'y  was  tickled!  But 
one  day  I  dipped  out  some  lye-hominy  wid 
it,  an'  it  must  'a'  slid  down  in  de  pot  an' 
b'iled  all  day.  I  tell  yer,  Missy,  hit  went 
in  white  but  it  come  out  a  good  mulatter- 
color. 

"Frank  say  de  silver  all  subsided  into 
de  hominy  an'  we-all  e't  it  up,  so  we  's  silver- 
coated  inside  ef  we  is  copper-plated  on  de 
outside. 


Aunt  A mity's  Silver  Wedding    1 5 

"But  I  sho'  does  wusht  I  had  it  now,  in 
all  its  plush  glory  for  de  weddin'. 

"It  'd  be  a  fine  side-boa'd  piece — ef  I  had 
a  side-boa'd. 

"You  can't  have  but  one  silver  weddin'  in 
a  lifetime,  an'  I  wants  to  have  it  racklass, 
whilst  I  'm  a-havin' !  Even  ef  you  stays 
heah  long  enough  to  have  two,  dey  say  de 
silver  turns  to  gold,  an'  Gord  knows  what  a 
po'  ole  nigger  resurrected  bride  would  do 
for  gold  presents — less'n  luck  changes ! 

"But  maybe,  seem'  it  's  silver,  somebody 
mought  ricomember  to  buy  me  a  thimble — 
or  a  breastpin.  Ole  Hannah,  de  William 
son's  cook,  she  got  a  lovely  brooch,  a  silver 
fryin'-pan.  It  makes  you  hongry  to  look 
at  it.  Ef  somebody  only  thought  enough 
o'  me—" 

"And  how  about  Frank?"  the  mistress 
interrupted.  "This  is  his  wedding,  too,  you 
know.  I  should  think  he  might  like  a  silver- 
headed  walking-cane,  or  a  match-box — " 


16    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

Amity  warded  off  this  suggestion  with 
her  hand. 

"No,  no !  Frank  ain't  got  no  title  to 
none  o'  dese  silver  presents.  Not  Frank !" 

"Not  Frank?  I  don't  understand.  Is  n't 
Frank  your  husband?" 

"Oh,  yas  'm;  of  co'se  he  's  my  chu'ch 
husban'  all  right,  but  not  dat  husbarf!" 

The  mistress's  wayward  eyebrow  de 
scribed  several  eccentric  curves  before  it 
found  itself  again,  and  she  could  ask  evenly : 

"And  do  you  mean  to  say — " 

"Yas  'm,  I  means  to  say  what  I  say.  I 
ain't  been  married  to  Frank  Stillwater  on'y 
jes  about  five  yeahs.  An'  I  been  studyin' 
about  dat,  too,  an'  dat  's  one  o'  de  p'ints  I 
come  to  insult  you  about.  Sence  Frank  is 
been  married  five  yeahs,  I  don't  see  why  he 
can't  draw  for  a  wood  weddin'.  Dey  tell  me 
five  yeahs  o'  marri'ge  is  de  wooden  univer- 
sary,  an'  dat  's  de  easiest  weddin'  dey  could 
give  on  a  plantation,  a  wooden  one  is." 


But  not  dat  husban'  !  " 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    19 

"Why,  yes.  There  are  so  many  little 
wooden  things  which  are  useful  and  cheap." 

"Yas  'm;  an'  jes  plain  wood.  What  's 
de  matter  wid  a  load  o'  fire  wood  or  fat  pine 
for  kindlin'?  Frank  would  be  glad  to  git 
anything,  f'om  a  box  o'  matches  to  a  hen 
coop  ;  an'  he  gwine  fiddle  for  'em  free,  any 
how." 

"A  new  fiddle  would  be  a  suitable  wooden 
present  for  Frank,  would  n't  it?" 

"Yas  'm,  or  a'  ole  one.  But,  law,  chile, 
dey  won't  be  no  sech  as  dat!  A  pair  o' 
butter-paddles  or  a  rollin'-pin  '11  be  about 
de  top  o'  dat  list. 

"But  heah  I  'm  gwine  on  an'  forgittin'  all 
about  de  bridal  veil!  Is  you  got  any  ole 
lace  left-overs,  Missy,  dat  I  mought  wear 
for  a  veil  ?  I  '11  do  it  up  keerf ul  an'  fetch  it 
back." 

The  mistress  hesitated  for  just  a  moment. 
Then  she  said: 

"Before  I  promise,  Amity,  tell  me  a  little 
2 


20    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

more.  What  became  of  your  first  husband? 
Where  is  he?" 

"Dat  's  a'  easy  one,"  the  woman  laughed ; 
"leastways,  half  of  it 's  easy.  'What  become 
of  Solon?'  A  triflin'  yaller  gal  stole  'im 
f 'om  me.  Dat  's  what  become  of  'im ;  an'  I 
don't  begrudge  'im  to  her.  But  as  to  whar 
he  is,  Gord  knows,  honey.  Livin'  or  dead, 
he  's  all  one  to  me  now.  Last  time  I  heerd 
tell  of  'im,  he  was  waitin'  on  Frank's  sister, 
down  in  Freetown.  He  mought  be  my 
brother-in-law  by  now,  for  all  I  know.  But 
you  '11  gi'e  me  de  bridal  veil,  won't  you, 
Mistus?" 

There  was  something  so  infantile  in  the 
face  which  looked  into  hers — something  so 
naive  in  the  whole  affair — maybe  it  was  the 
mistress's  duty  to  read  this  woman  of  primal 
instincts  a  sermon  on  morals — morals  as 
taught  in  the  churches  and  "followed  afar 
off"  by  the  more  enlightened.  Maybe  she 
was  very  wrong  to  do  it,  but  she  promised 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    21 

without  demur,  and  the  bride  who  appeared 
at  the  silver  wedding,  a  fortnight  later,  was 
resplendent  in  veil  and  wreath,  and  the 
ceremony  was  performed  with  the  coveted 
ring  of  pure  silver,  sent  down  from  the  great 
house  with  best  wishes  and  congratulations. 

The  silver  wedding  of  the  quarters  was 
evidently  modeled  after  that  of  the  judge's 
mansion,  as  several  of  its  salient  features 
were  repeated.  It  may  have  been  that  the 
Chinese  lanterns  which  hung  in  rows  from 
the  porch  rafters,  within  its  inclosure  of 
young  pines  cut  from  the  wood,  were  the 
identical  ones  which  had  so  recently  done 
similar  duty  at  the  more  important  function, 
and,  as  the  lesser  house,  with  its  surround 
ing  balconies,  was  a  humble  copy  of  the 
other,  albeit  there  were  no  Corinthian  col 
umns  or  cornice  under  its  eaves,  the  general 
effect  when  the  lights  were  lit  and  the  func 
tion  "in  full  blast."  was  much  the  same. 

It  happened  that  the  Methodist  bishop 


22    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

of  the  African  circuit,  a  stranger  of  high 
repute,  was  in  the  neighborhood, — that  is, 
he  was  within  a  day's  drive, — and  it  was  no 
trouble  to  get  him  to  come  and  officiate. 

Needless  to  say,  the  place  was  crowded. 
Indeed,  it  was  jammed  uncomfortably,  so 
that  the  two  resetted  ushers  were  kept  busy 
thinning  out  the  galleries  and  opening  a 
passage  for  bride  and  groom,  who  were  to 
slip  out  the  back  door  separately,  and,  mak 
ing  a  tour  of  the  house  on  the  outside,  meet 
and  join  hands  at  the  front  door,  and  enter 
the  inclosure  together. 

This  parade  was  Amity's  idea,  and  it  was 
a  good  one  in  that  it  would  afford  every 
body  a  view  of  bride  and  groom,  with  the 
charm  of  ceremony. 

The  bishop,  a  slender,  slope-shouldered 
man  of  negative  coloring,  would  have  failed 
of  impressiveness  but  for  his  unusual  height. 
He  must  have  been  six  feet  four,  certainly ; 
and  here  again  was  his  dignity  jeopardized 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    23 

by  a  grotesque  incongruity  between  the 
length  of  his  person  and  the  exceeding 
brevity  of  the  ministerial  robe,  which  struck 
him  about  the  knees. 

But  a  deep  sonorous  voice  of  authority  is 
all-compelling  and  at  his  first  words  no  one 
knew  or  cared  anything  about  the  length  of 
the  bishop's  gown  or  his  legs. 

It  was  easy  to  understand  before  he  had 
spoken  three  minutes  why  he  had  been  made 
bishop.  Resonant,  musical,  forceful,  his 
voice  seemed  to  select  his  words  as  if  they 
were  jewels  which  he  prodigally  threw  out 
among  his  hearers,  even  the  commonest  peb 
ble  among  them  taking  a  sparkle  as  it  left 
his  eloquent  lips.  One  cannot  help  wonder 
ing  what  such  a  one  might  achieve  as  an 
orator  if  his  language  were  shorn  of  dialect 
and  freed  from  the  limitations  of  illiteracy. 
And  yet  there  are  compensations  in  all 
things. 

To  him  who   listens   sympathetically,  is 


24    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

there  not  sometimes  a  pathos  in  ignorance, 
and  does  not  broken  speech  hold  an  appeal 
which  is  essentially  its  own? 

It  was  a  new  ceremony,  this — new  to 
everybody,  priest  and  people.  The  common 
expectation  was  that  the  bridal  couple  would 
step  forward,  that  the  bishop  would  lift  his 
arms  and  bless  them,  and  then  the  social 
evening  would  begin. 

But  not  so.  This  was  an  opportunity  for 
the  orator,  a  chance  not  to  be  thrown  away. 
When  the  pair  had  paraded  the  outer  rim 
of  the  pine  inclosure,  met  at  the  front  door, 
and,  joining  hands,  walked  demurely  in  over 
the  strip  of  carpet  laid  for  the  purpose,  and 
taken  their  stand  upon  the  rug  before  the 
small  table  behind  which  waited  the  bishop, 
all  as  prearranged,  he  lifted  his  arms  for  a 
moment  only,  and  with  an  almost  impercep 
tible  "Sh-h-h-h-h !"  commanded  silence. 
And  then,  as  nearly  as  the  writer  can  recall, 
he  began  in  this  wise : 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    25 

"In  de  mornin'  of  life,  when  de  sun  is  in 
de  eastern  sky,  de  shadders  is  long  todes  de 
west. 

"When  dis  yo'ng  couple,  no  mo'  'n  boy 
an'  gal,  jedgin'  by  dey  looks  to-day — when 
dey  stood  togedder  in  the  sunrise,  ef  dey  had 
looked  behind  'em,  dey  'd  'a'  seen  de  long 
shadders  of  'spe'ence,  an'  maybe  lost  cour 
age.  But  dey  did  n't  look  back.  Dey  faced 
de  sunlight  wid  shinin'  faces. 

"An'  now,  at  life's  midday,  standin'  out 
in  de  clair  light  of  noon,  so  to  speak,  dey  's 
free  to  look  bofe  ways — for  dey  ain't  no 
shadders  in  sight.  Ef  de  pink  promises  of 
youth  is  faded,  so  is  also  de  long  shadders 
gone  out.  De  oniest  shadders  dey  is  is 
under  dey  feet.  Now  is  de  day  o'  fulfilment 
and,  by  de  grace  o'  Gord,  dey  stands  in  it, 
once  mo\  togedder! 

"An'  as  it  draps  into  de  evenin',  ef  dey  '11 
still  keep  dey  eyes  faithfully  turned  todes  de 
sun,  de  shadders  '11  be  bound  to  stay  behind 


26    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

'em  ag'in ;  an'  dey  'II  pass  out  at  last  in 
glory,  through  de  golden  gate  o*  sunset!" 

The  bishop  had  evidently  not  been 
coached.  At  each  reference  to  the  young 
couple  of  the  early  marriage,  the  sensitive 
spectator  might  have  realized  a  slight  atmo 
spheric  disturbance ;  but  it  was  not  serious. 
Manners  are  manners,  even  on  a  sugar  plan 
tation  in  the  Louisiana  bottom-lands,  and  a 
function  of  high  form  could  not  be  broken 
by  failure  of  etiquette. 

The  bishop  had  the  floor  and  all  the  com 
pany  were  invited  guests  of  those  whom  he 
so  unconsciously  lifted  into  the  light  of 
question. 

Certainly  the  wedding  couple  could  not 
have  been  accused  of  deception,  as  the  size 
of  many  of  the  parcels  which  towered  over 
the  shoulders  of  the  impatient  guests  pro 
claimed  their  contents  to  be  of  wood  rather 
than  silver. 

It  did  not  really  make  much  difference 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    29 

what  the  bishop  said,  so  long  as  he  spoke  in 
figures,  and  while  the  aroma  of  the  feast 
was  permeating  the  place,  so  that  brevity 
seemed  the  only  thing  to  be  desired. 

And  he  was  too  clever  to  wax  prolix  even 
if  he  would.  After  the  address,  things 
moved  rapidly  enough.  In  a  moment,  bride 
and  groom  had  knelt  and  received  the  bless 
ing  of  the  church;  the  ceremony  was  done 
and  over,  and  all  trivialities  forgotten  in  the 
stir  of  novelty  and  of  expectation. 

Amity  proved  her  faculty  in  the  complete 
ness  with  which  everything  had  been  ar 
ranged.  In  a  few  moments  one  of  the  ush 
ers  had  announced  the  route  of  the  proces 
sion,  which  was  to  pass  by  in  single  file, 
bestowing  the  gifts  in  order.  Accommoda 
tions  were  even  provided  for  extra  bulky 
parcels  in  the  open  fireplace,  with  a  youth 
waiting  to  convey  them  thither. 

For  the  convenience  of  contributors 
of  coins,  a  glass  preserve-jar,  in  the  metal 


30    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

top  of  which  a  slot  had  been  cut,  stood  on 
the  table  at  the  side  of  the  bride.  She  had 
tried  to  arrange  a  bell  within  the  jar,  so 
that  every  contribution  should  ring  into 
place,  but  this  was  a  failure,  and  she  had 
been  obliged  to  put  up  with  the  ordinary 
clink  of  the  silver  as  it  fell.  The  jar,  or 
other  securely  covered  receptacle,  was  really 
necessary  in  a  crowd  like  this,  in  a  commu 
nity  where  passing  the  hat  in  church  had  had 
to  be  abolished  because  of  the  occasional 
peculations  from  it  by  such  as  professed  to 
be  "making  change"  during  its  passage.  It 
had  proved  a  little  too  easy  to  drop  in  a 
quarter  and  take  out,  say,  thirty-five  cents. 
When  contributions  began  to  come  in  to 
night,  the  groom,  who  suggested  nothing  so 
much  as  an  animated  grin,  announced  that 
he  was  provided  with  change  for  any  who 
might  desire  it.  Also,  into  each  hand  as  it 
dropped  a  coin  into  the  jar  he  was  pleased 
to  place  a  "supper  ticket,"  for  presenta- 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    31 

tion  at  the  table  later.  So  did  Amity's 
astute  management  forestall  any  schemes  of 
the  over-greedy  to  eat  more  than  one  sup 
per,  although,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  it 
was  freely  said  afterward  that  there  were 
several  who  did  actually  press  themselves 
again  into  the  procession  and  by  dropping 
a  paltry  "picayune,"  draw  a  second  seat  at 
the  banquet.  But  this  may  not  have  been 
true,  and  even  if  it  were,  perhaps,  it  has  its 
counterpart  for  chicanery  in  frenzied 
finance  in  circles  of  higher  rating. 

Amity  made  a  great  picture  as  she  stood 
in  the  place  of  honor.  She  had  thrown 
back  her  veil,  as  it  was  in  the  way,  and  her 
happy  face  was  good  to  behold  while  she 
frankly  welcomed  each  guest  with  both 
hands  extended — shaking  with  one  and  tak 
ing  with  the  other. 

While  most  gifts  of  silver  were  in  the 
shape  of  coins,  a  few  resplendent  boxes 
arrived,  with  showy  furnishings,  "mag- 


32    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

nificently  washed"  with  the  required  metal. 
The  mistress  had  seen  to  it  that  the  bride 
should  not  be  put  to  shame  through  neglect. 

The  collection  of  wooden  things  was 
really  surprising,  and  a  few  of  them  mirth- 
provoking  in  their  suggestions. 

The  occasion  was  a  brilliant  success,  ex 
ceeding  the  most  ambitious  hopes  of  its 
ambitious  hostess,  from  first  to  last — or  at 
least  from  first  until  nearly  the  last,  when 
something  happened. 

The  supper  had  been  served  in  relays,  the 
back  porch  being  reserved  for  this  purpose, 
one  set  of  guests,  as  it  was  filled,  giving 
place  to  another,  and  the  last  tables  were 
nearly  done  when  there  was  a  sound, — or 
was  it  a  sound? — footsteps  coming  in  out  of 
the  night,  footsteps  strange  and  alien,  which 
seemed  to  be  felt  rather  than  heard.  The 
stranger,  out  of  sympathy  with  the  indoor 
spirit,  although  he  moved  noiselessly,  had 
no  need  of  announcement,  for  the  people 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    33 

moved  back,  giving  him  right  of  way  by  a 
sort  of  intuitional  avoidance. 

An  oldish  man — dark,  stocky,  alert,  low 
ering,  he  wore  a  slouch  hat  pulled  down 
over  his  eyes,  so  that  when  he  looked  before 
him  he  seemed  to  stare.  In  the  middle  of 
the  room  he  stopped,  and  after  looking 
about  him  for  a  moment,  he  said: 

"Whar  de  bride?" 

The  voice  was  low,  but  incisive,  and  al 
though  he  moved  silently,  there  was  that 
in  his  bearing  which  was  unpleasant — a 
sort  of  surety  of  himself,  as  if  he  were  quite 
conscious  of  power — a  disagreeable  thing 
when  it  is  undefined. 

Amity  was  standing  with  a  group  of  her 
friends  when  they  called  her.  Seeing  her 
coming,  the  visitor  advanced  to  meet  her, 
his  hat  still  low  over  his  eyes.  He  did  not 
extend  his  hand.  He  simply  said,  when 
she  had  come  quite  up  to  him : 

"Well,  Amity?" 


34    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

It  may  seem  like  straining  a  point  to  say 
that  a  chocolate  cheek  flushes,  and  yet  who 
that  has  witnessed  the  swift  change  from 
brown  to  blackish  gray  in  such  a  face  in 
the  crisis  of  sudden  panic  can  deny  that  it 
changes  color?  It  is  as  definite  and  as 
effective  to  convey  embarrassment  as  the 
most  florid  stain  which  rushes  to  a  lady's 
discomfiture,  painting  her  face  with  shame. 

So  was  the  smiling  countenance  of  Amity 
Stillwater,  the  bride,  suddenly  suffused  with 
trouble  when  she  met  and  recognized  her 
guest,  and  the  voice  which  answered  was  me 
tallic  and  feelingless. 

"What  does  you  want  heah?"  This  was 
all  it  said. 

"I  got  a  little  business,"  was  the  reply,— 
"a  little  business  wid  de  business  manager  of 
dis  show,  whoever  he  is — de  bishop,  I 
reckon." 

By  this  time  Amity  had  recovered  herself. 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    35 

She  was  even  able  to  feign  a  smile  when  she 
replied : 

"I  's  my  own  business  man — an'  ef  you 
wants  to  see  me,  come  dis  way."  And  as 
she  turned  from  her  friends,  she  said  play 
fully,  over  her  shoulder:  "Wrop  up  a  little 
piece  o'  de  weddin'-cake  by  de  time  we  comes 
back,  please.  Dis  gentleman  '11  take  a  piece 
to  dream  on." 

And  with  this  she  led  the  way  out  thef 
door  to  a  seat  in  the  yard — her  wash-bench, 
really — under  the  mulberries  near  the  well. 

She  did  not  speak  as  she  crossed  the 
yard;  neither  did  her  strange  guest.  But 
when  they  were  quite  away,  and  she  had  mo 
tioned  him  to  a  seat,  she  said : 

"Well,  Solon,  what  is  it?" 

"What  you  reckon?"  the  man  answered. 
"You  don't  reckon  I  's  jest  on  a  pleasure- 
trip,  does  you?  No,  I  come  on  business.  I 
did  n't  git  no  invite — an'  I  did  n't  need 


86    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

none.  A  man  don't  have  to  git  invited  to 
his  own  silver  weddin'."  There  was  a  note 
of  malice  in  the  chuckle  with  which  he  threw 
this  at  her;  but  she  took  no  heed  of  half- 
shades. 

"Please  to  state  yo'  business,  Solon  — 
an'  state  it  quick.  What  you  want?" 

"What  you  reckon  I  want?"  He  had 
removed  his  slouch  hat  now  and  was  blandly 
fanning  himself  with  it.  As  she  did  not 
hurry  to  answer*  again,  he  added : 

"I  want  what  's  comin'  to  me,  dat  's  all." 

"What  's  comin'  to  you?"  The  woman 
really  did  not  understand. 

"Dat  's  what  I  said.  I  come  for  what  's 
comin'  to  me.  Dey  tol'  me  you  an'  Frank 
Stillwater  was  givin'  a»  silver  weddin'  down 
heah,  an'  from  what  I  see,  peepin'  in  whilst 
de  procession  was  movin',  I  jedge  it  's  true. 
An'  ef  it  is,  I  reckon  I  'm  yo'  pardner  in  de 
silver-weddin'  business.  I  come  for  my 
half  o'  dat  till,  Mis'  Stillwater." 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    37 

"Oh!"  This  was  not  much  to  say,  just 
"Oh !"  It  was  little  more  than  a  gasp,  but 
in  it  were  intimidation — a  futile  flare  of  re 
sentment  spent  even  in  the  utterance — and 
surrender. 

The  man  saw  his  advantage,  and  was 
quick  to  follow  it  up. 

"Well,  be  quick,  please!"  he  said;  "I 
come  a  long  ways.  I  don't  want  to  make 
no  scandalizemint.  I  only  come  for  what 's 
comin'  to  me — like  I  said.  Ef  Frank  Still- 
water  is  calculatin'  to  claim  a  sheer  in  my 
silver  weddin9 — " 

The  woman  waved  him  silent  with  her 
arm,  topping  his  voice  with  hers : 

"Frank  ain't  claimin'  nothin'  but  his 
own.  Hit  's  only  his  wooden  weddin'  wid 
me.  De  silver  is  mine — " 

"Ours!"  interrupted  the  man  of  the 
slouch  hat,  and  then  he  laughed  mockingly. 
"An'  so  Frank  is  takin'  out  his  five  years  in 
wood,  is  he?  I  fotched  him  a  little  wood 


38    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

present  myself — to  give  him  in  case  he 
gimme  trouble."  He  laid  his  hand  upon  his 
heavy  walking-stick, — almost  a  club,  it  was, 
—  and  dropped  it,  chuckling  again.  "An' 
so  you  was  keepin'  my  sheer  o'  de  silver  for 
me,  Amity?  Thank  you  kindly.  An'  now 
ef  you  '11  come  wid  me  an'  git  it — " 

Amity  was  an  amiable  creature,  but 
Solon  had  gone  just  a  little  too  far.  As 
she  rose,  still  obedient  to  his  demand,  she 
turned  and  glared  at  him. 

"I  see  you  ain't  changed  none,"  she  said 
slowly;  "hogs  don't  change." 

And  then  motioning  to  him  to  walk  be 
fore,  she  followed  him  across  the  moonlit 
yard  back  to  the  house. 

"Wait," 'she  began  to  say,  but  it  was  use 
less,  as  the  man  did  not  intend  to  let  her  get 
out  of  his  sight.  He  followed  her  in. 

Frank  happened  to  be  passing  just  as 
they  entered,  and  Amity  whispered  to  him, 
something  which  sounded  like: 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    39 

"Git  de  money-jar,"  and  this  was  prob 
ably  what  it  was,  as  it  was  precisely  what 
he  did,  the  habit  of  his  life  being  to  comply 
with  his  wife's  demands  without  question. 

When  he  had  brought  the  jar  of  silver, 
Amity  said*  something  in  his  ear  again,  and 
the  two  men  went  together  to  the  retirement 
of  the  wash-bench  in  the  mulberry  shade. 
A  round  moon  sent  white  search-lights  flit 
ting  between  moving  clouds  across  the 
yard,  so  that  one  could  almost  discern  the 
colors  of  the  marigolds  and  zinnias  which 
bloomed  along  the  way,  bordering  the  front 
line  of  Amity's  vegetable  garden. 

The  woman  stopped  only  a  moment  for 
a  word  with  her  guests  and  slipped  away 
again  to  the  mulberries.  She  had  probably 
expected  to  find  the  men  amiably  dividing 
the  silver,  as  Solon  had  had  time  enough  to 
explain  his  demand;  but  they  sat  quietly 
apart,  awaiting  her  coming.  It  had  not 
even  occurred  to  Frank  who  his  strange 


40    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

guest  might  be.  If  he  had  been  forced  to 
an  opinion,  he  might  have  guessed  from  the 
call  for  the  money-jar  that  it  was  some 
body  taking  up  a  missionary  collection, 
although  the  hour  for  such  was  late. 

It  was  only  when  Amity  said,  "Well, 
Solon  ?"  that  Frank  knew  whom  he  had  been 
entertaining. 

There  was  power  in  the  name,  and  it 
lifted  him  to  his  feet,  seeing  which,  the 
larger  man  rose  also — and  faced  him. 

"He  claims  half  o'  dat  money,  Frank, 
'caze  he  stood  wid  me  at  dat  April-fool  wed- 
din'  twenty-five  years  ago,"  Amity  said, 
evenly,  and  then  she  added,  "an*  ef  he  's 
needin'  small  change  so  much  as  to  ride  fifty 
miles  for  it,  I  reckon — " 

But  she  did  not  finish.  Frank  did  not 
give  her  a  chance.  He  had  placed  the  jar 
in  her  hands,  pulled  off  his  coat  and  rolled 
up  his  sleeves,  before  she  realized  what  he 
meant. 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    41 

"You  hold  dese  stakes,  Amity,"  he  said, 
"tell  we  see  who  's  de  bes'  man.  Hit  won't 
be  divided,  but  de  bes'  man  takes  de  pot." 
And  stepping  stiffly,  like  a  little  game 
rooster  bristling  for  the  fray,  he  began 
backing  until  he  stood  in  the  middle  of  the 
open  behind  the  wash-bench — on  Amity's 
bleaching-grass  plot — an  ideal  clearing  for 
a  fight.  Every  motion  had  been  a  chal 
lenge,  and  of  course  there  was  nothing  else 
for  Solon  to  do  but  to  follow.  The  mag 
nificence  of  the  man's  insolence  as  he  lan 
guidly  did  so  was  like  fuel  to  the  fire  of 
Frank's  wrath. 

He  even  had  the  audacity  to  remark  while 
he  took  his  stand  and  threw  off  his  coat: 

"Of  co'se,  ef  you  wants  me  to  kill  yer — " 

The  man  was  taller  than  Frank,  twice 
his  heft,  and  no  doubt  he  expected  to  give 
him  a  good  beating,  take  the  jar,  and  go 
his  way.  But  Frank  felt  differently  about 
it.  He  was  pretty  sure,  too. 


42    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

If  Solon  was  strong,  his  opponent  was 
lithe  and  wiry.  Felled  by  a  blow  which 
threatened  to  send  him  to  Kingdom-come, 
he  was  back  in  a  flash,  fairly  walking  all 
over  the  person  of  the  larger  man,  tangling 
himself  in  his  arms  and  legs,  tripping  him 
so  that  he  fell,  and  then,  before  he  could 
regain  footing,  tripping  him  again,  and  yet 
again. 

Over  and  over  they  went  across  the  grass- 
plot,  and  beyond  into  the  dusty  yard  where 
the  hens  cooled  themselves — the  strong  man 
wasting  himself  in  missent  blows,  rising  and 
falling,  and  rising  again — Frank  astride 
his  neck,  pommeling  his  face  with  his  heels, 
until  he  succeeded  in  slipping  down  behind 
him,  bracing  back  his  arms  with  both  his 
little  legs  while  he  caught  the  standing  man 
by  one  foot  from  behind  and  pulled  him 
over  to  the  ground  again. 

Here  he  made  him  eat  the  dust,  literally, 
for  while  he  held  him  face  downward,  there 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    43 

was  nothing  for  him  to  breathe  but  the  fine 
poultry-flavored  grit  of  the  barn-yard. 

They  kept  veering  as  they  fought,  ever 
in  one  direction,  until  they  were  almost  up 
to  the  fig-tree  where  the  chickens  roosted, 
and  a  low  scolding  sound  from  the  branches 
showed  that  things  were  rather  ticklish 
there,  since  its  recent  devastation  for  the 
feast — only  a  few  of  the  older  and  tougher 
citizens  remaining. 

There  were  moments  in  this  test  of  prow 
ess  and  of  skill  when  there  seemed  to  be  little 
doing  in  the  dust-cloud,  so  close  was  the 
contest  between  agility  and  brute  strength, 
and  these  were  moments  of  anxiety  for 
Amity,  who  had  kept  close  all  the  time,  even 
urging  and  coaxing  the  smaller  man  to 
"give  it  to  'im !"  at  intervals  as  she  saw  the 
need.  She  had  agreed  to  "keep  her  hands 
off"  before  they  began  to  fight,  and  only 
once  did  she  break  the  spirit  of  her  prom 
ise,  even  while  she  kept  its  letter. 


44    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

Solon  was  a  powerful  fellow, — no  mistak 
ing  that, — and  once,  after  a  long-drawn 
tussel  in  which  Frank  had  worried  him 
almost  to  the  point  of  exhaustion,  the  man 
gave  a  sudden  lurch  and  would  have  risen, 
turning  Frank  under,  but  for  Amity.  With 
a  quick  plunge,  she  planted  herself  upon 
Solon,  and  sat  there;  and  Amity  weighed 
two  hundred  and  fifty,  if  she  weighed  a 
pound.  Seeing  that  she  had  him,  so  that 
he  could  not  help  himself,  flat,  face  down 
ward,  chest  in  the  dust,  arms  and  legs 
spread  hopelessly,  she  said  to  Frank,  with 
a  nod  toward  the  well-bucket: 

"Tekadrink;Igot'im!" 

And  while  the  little  man  was  away,  she 
leaned  over  and  hissed  into  the  ear  of  the 
other:  "You  hog!" 

But  Solon  could  not  answer.  He  could 
not  even  spit  out  the  dust.  And  when  Frank 
came  back,  running,  and  bade  the  woman 
get  up,  while  he  took  her  place,  standing 


Is  vou  satisfied  ?" 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    47 

where  she  had  sat  and  ready  to  be  lifted  for 
a  fresh  encounter,  he  suddenly  realized  how 
things  were,  and  he  said  quickly  in  some 
alarm :  "Better  go  fetch  some  water  for 
him."  When  it  was  brought,  together  they 
lifted  the  man  and  made  him  drink,  and  it 
was  the  partner  of  his  early  wedding  who 
wiped  his  face  for  him  and  helped  him  to  a 
sitting  posture,  but  the  thing  which  she 
kept  saying  into  his  ear,  albeit  the  tone  was 
soft  enough,  was,  "Hog!  Hog!" 

And  when  the  man  was  revived,  Frank 
said,  "Is  you  satisfied?" 

"Don't  hurry  me."  The  voice  was  that 
of  the  vanquished.  "Go  lead  my  horse  in 
heah — an'  lemme  go.  Ef  I  'm  once-t  in  de 
saddle—" 

And  so  it  was  that  when  in  a  little  while 
Amity  went  back  to  her  friends,  she  made 
an  excuse  for  Frank,  who,  she  said,  had 
"gone  to  drive  a  hog  out  o'  de  lot."  Then 
she  slipped  in,  and  got  her  man  a  clean  shirt 


48    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

and  a  fresh  pair  of  trousers,  and  went  out 
and  helped  him  bathe  his  face  and  hands  at 
the  well,  in  the  screenery  of  the  mulberries, 
where  no  one  could  see,  and  if  the  wakeful 
fowls  had  listened  while  she  mopped  his 
face,  they  might  have  heard  endearing 
terms,  quite  different  from  that  other  word 
which  she  had  kept  repeating  in  their  hear 
ing  to  some  one  who,  for  all  they  could  see 
from  their  perch,  might  have  been  the  same 
man. 

WHEN  they  returned  to  the  crowd,  Amity 
briskly  to  the  fore  and  Frank  tripping 
along  behind,  a  bit  flurried,  as  is  often  the 
master  cock  after  a  barn-yard  victory,  the 
woman  was  in  high  glee  and,  springing  for 
ward,  she  seized  the  fiddle  and  put  it  into 
her  man's  hands  while  she  caught  up  her 
flounces  and  danced  down  the  center  of  the 
room,  declaring  that  she  "had  n't  had  so 
much  fun  since  she  was  a  baby !" 


Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding    49 

It  seemed  a  simple  childish  impulse  of 
triumphant  glee,  but  there  was  something 
so  fine  in  it,  so  above  the  common  in  its 
reckless  abandon,  that  the  people  moved 
back  involuntarily,  giving  her  the  floor. 

When  she  had  taken  a  few  turns,  she 
threw  her  head  over  her  shoulder  and  called 
to  Frank,  who  had  begun  to  tune  up: 
"Hurry,  man !  Mek  de  fiddle  talk !" 

And,  catching  her  fire,  so  he  did.  Elo 
quent  beyond  all  previous  record,  the  rustic 
strings  fairly  pitched  forth  dancing  pat 
terns  into  which  the  ponderous  dancer  fell 
and  rose,  swaying  or  tilting,  as  the  magic 
of  the  fiddle  compelled,  as  weightless,  upon 
toes  inspired,  as  the  feathery  fluffs  of  thistle 
which  dance  upon  the  breeze.  Staccato 
high  steps,  slurring  curves  for  languorous 
poses,  sudden  lapses  when  half-frenzied 
crowding  of  high  notes  threw  her  into  haz 
ardous  poising  in  which  she  tipped  to  the 
danger-edge,  when  a  peremptory  scrape  of 


50    Aunt  Amity's  Silver  Wedding 

the  rosined  bow  brought  her  up  with  a  sud 
den  turn,  at  which  the  crowd,  breathless  till 
now,  burst  into  a  storm  of  wild  applause, 
and  Frank,  seeing  the  moment  come,  lifted 
his  bow  and  called  out: 

"Tek  yo'  pardners  for  de.weddin'  march! 
Once-t  roun'  de  outside  o'  de  pines,  twice-t 
roun'  de  gallery  on  de  inside,  den  brek  up 
in  a  Ferginia  reel!  Tek  yo'  pardners!" 


PETTY  LARCENY 


PETTY  LARCENY 


PERHAPS  it  is  rather  startling- 
Petty  Larceny — as  a  name  for  a 
girl.  And  yet,  taken  as  we  usually  take 
names,  with  no  idea  of  any  special  meaning, 
it  is  not  half  bad.  Indeed,  it  is  even  good, 
which  is  to  say,  primarily,  it  has  pho 
netic  quality,  is  euphonious  to  a  pleasing 
degree,  and  its  first  part,  Petty,  makes  an 
attractive  diminutive,  rather  suggestive  of 
affection.  On  the  plantation,  where  alone 
the  name  was  known,  Petty  stood  wholly  as 
a  term  of  endearment. 

Petty  was  a  fascinating  maid  of  twenty 
or  thereabouts, — "sort  o'  molasses-candy 
color  an'  sweeter  yit,"  so  one  of  her  numer- 

53 


54  "Petty  Larceny" 

ous  admirers  once  described  her, — and  it 
would  n't  have  mattered  much  if  her  name 
had  been  Dolores  Vobiscum,  like  that  of 
one  of  her  friends  who  lost  her  mind:  she 
would  instantly  have  become  Dolly  the 
adorable,  and  been  just  as  captivating  as 
now. 

Her  father,  a  stolid  old  negro  known  as 
King  David,  had  served  as  janitor  at  the 
court-house  in  a  remote  county  for  several 
years  in  his  early  manhood;  and  during 
that  time,  as  he  went  about  his  duties  with 
no  thought  beyond  the  manual  responsi 
bilities  of  his  office,  certain  bits  of  court  ver 
nacular  fell  from  time  to  time  unheeded  into 
his  ignoring  mind,  and  simply  lay  there, 
like  leaves  in  a  dovecote,  which  either  lie 
and  rot  or  perchance  sometime  serve  in  the 
forming  of  a  nest,  for  simple  availability 
and  fitness. 

Old  King  David  had  always  been  a  man 
of  few  words,  and  the  unusualness  of  his 


"Petty  Larceny" 55 

slender  vocabulary,  enriched  in  so  excep 
tional  a  way,  gave,  him  an  enviable  reputa 
tion  for  wisdom  in  a  community  the  highest 
tribute  of  which  was  paid  to  the-  incom 
prehensible. 

For  instance,  when  once  in  a  quarrel 
with  a  neighbor  whom  he  had  accused  of 
some  offense,  no  matter  what,  he  clenched 
his  argument  and  won  the  lasting  respect  of 
a  number  of  witnesses  by  exclaiming: 

"What  's  dat  you  say,  nigger?  Ef  you 
talk  like  dat,  I  '11  prove  a'  alibi  on  you  in 
de  face  o'  Constitutional  Jewish  prudence. "" 

No  one  knows  certainly  by  what  associa 
tion  the  old  man  had  connected  the  term 
"petit  larceny"  with  his  child,  or  that  there 
was  any  special  connection.  It  may  have 
been  only  like  the  leaf  blown  into  the  dove 
cote,  taken  to  serve.  However,  the  writer 
is  inclined  to  believe — from  slight  circum 
stantial  evidence,  which  is  often  worse  than 
no  evidence  at  all — that  in  some  mystical 


56 "Petty  Larceny3' 

way  he  had  associated  the  name  with  the 
divinity  whose  statue,  done  in  plaster,  stood 
over  the  court-house  door — her  whom  we 
all  know,  who  stands  ever  blindfolded  and 
bearing  a  pair  of  scales  in  her  hand. 

This  may  be  an  idle  fancy,  and  yet,  what 
else  could  he  have  meant  when,  one  day, 
seeing  Petty  playing  blindman's-buff  with 
the  other  children  when  she  was  about 
twelve,  he  exclaimed,  laughing: 

"Now,  ef  somebody  'd  loan'd  Petty  a 
pair  o'  weighin'-scales,  she'd  look  perzac'ly 
like  her  own  statute." 

Be  this  as  it  may,  he  was  more  than 
satisfied  with  the  name,  as  was  every  one 
else  on  the  place.  The  mother,  born  and 
reared  in  the  shadows  of  even  sub-suburban 
life,  on  a  plantation  remote  from  the  world 
of  thought  or  suggestion,  took  it  with  art 
less  delight  not  unmixed  with  pride,  recog 
nizing  it  as  one  of  a  noble  family,  the 


"Petty  Larceny" 57 

acquaintance  of  which  her  lord  had  made 
in  a  broader  life  than  hers. 

Stealing  was  stealing  on  Sugar  Bend 
plantation,  and  vigilance  committees  did  n't 
trouble  themselves  much  with  terms.  Of 
course,  there  had  been  occasional  cases 
where  culprits,  taken  in  some  offense,,  had 
been  carried  for  trial  to  court,  thirty  miles 
away ;  but  these  were  rare,  and  were  gener 
ally  for  simple  "American  crimes,"  such  as 
horse-stealing  or  fighting. 

As  she  had  merged  into  handsome  woman 
hood,  Petty's  father  made  an  effort  to  have 
her  called  Larceny,  and  for  a  time  it  seemed 
as  if  the  more  dignified  name,  shortened  to 
Larcene,  would  carry  the  day ;  and  so  it 
might  have  done  but  for  the  girl's  unfailing 
winsomeness,  which  made  Petty  or  even  "Pet 
for  short"  peculiarly  fitting. 

Petty  wore  gowns  of  yellow  and  red  and 
pink,  and  she  sewed  ruffles  of  one  color  upon 


58  "Petty  Larceny" 

another  with  long  and  careless  stitches 
wherever  about  her  flounce-loving  person 
there  seemed  a  place,  and  she  was  as  pretty 
and  straight  as  a  yellow  flag. 

Going  to  the  field,  she  always  had  a  man 
with  her,  with  gangs  of  malcontents  within 
easy  range,  keeping  her  in  sight;  and  until 
her  twentieth  year,  when  she  finally  made 
her  choice,  scarcely  twice  in  succession  was 
she  seen  with  the  same  man. 

She  would  have  been  surrounded,  of 
course,  but  for  plantation  etiquette,  which 
requires  that  one  at  a  time  shall  have  his 
chance  with  a  maid,  and  while  this  oppor 
tunity  lasts  the  rest  must  stand  off. 

Everybody  knew  that  little  yellow  Phil, 
the  fiddler,  had  loved  her  to  despair  all  his 
life,  and  yet — perhaps  because  he  had  loved 
her  humbly  without  hope  for  so  long,  and, 
too,  partly  because  every  able-bodied  buck 
on  the  place  was  his  confident  rival — every 
one  was  surprised  at  her  choice.  Still, 


"Petty  Larceny"  59 

m-any  were  glad,  just  out  of  kindly  sym 
pathy  with  the  lesser  man.  For  love  of 
Petty,  Phil  had  worn  black-and-blue  eyes  at 
frequent  intervals  for  years ;  had  even  car 
ried  his  arm  in  a  sling  for  her  sake,  a  seri 
ous  matter  for  a  fiddler. 

Phil  always  got  whipped  in  every  en 
counter  in  love's  cause,  and  yet  he  never 
seemed  to  have  any  sense  of  fear,  at  least 
where  Petty  was  concerned.  At  the  ghost 
of  an  insinuation  reflecting  upon  her,  he 
would  light  into  a  six-footer  with  the  fire 
and  recklessness  of  a  bantam  rooster  chal 
lenged  by  a  cock  of  the  walk. 

It  is  probable  that  the  little  man  was  as 
much  surprised  as  any  one  else  when  Petty 
finally  accepted  him.  Certainly  he  acted 
quite  as  a  man  out  of  his  mind,  and  when 
he  was  fiddling  at  a  dance  a  few  days  after 
his  engagement,  he  actually  grew  so  nervous 
while  he  watched  her  take  the  "Cincinnati'* 
step  and  then  "mosey"  down  the  center  of  the 


60  "Petty  Larceny3 

room  that  he  lost  his  time,  and  finally  "broke 
down  in  a  regular  giggle,"  and  had  to  begin 
all  over  again,  to  the  hilarious  delight  of 
the  older  men  and  the  mocking  derision  of 
his  recent  rivals. 

"De  princip'lest  trouble  wid  a'  ingaged 
fiddler,"  Phil  chuckled  as  he  played,  "is  dat 
he  don't  nuver  git  a  chance  sca'cely  to  dance 
wid  'is  gal  hisself;  but  he  can  worry  her 
pardner  an'  make  him  come  to  any  time  he 
chooses."  Saying  which,  he  one  time  played 
so  fast  that  Petty's  fat  partner  "tumbled  all 
over  himself"  and  fell  sprawling. 

Phil  had  as  little  money  as  any  young 
man  in  the  county,  and  as  slight  financial 
prospects.  A  fiddler  need  never  starve  on 
a  Southern  plantation, — that  is,  if  he  fid 
dles  well  enough, — but  neither  may  he  grow 
rich. 

True,  he  easily  earns  his  three  dollars  a 
night,  with  an  occasional  five,  while  the 
laborer  iri  the  field  is  glad  to  get  his  dollar 


"Petty  Larceny" .61 

a  day;  but  the  fiddler,  as  a  rule,  is  in  re 
quisition  only  on  Saturday  nights  at  best, 
and  so,  unless  he  has  some  sub-trade,  living 
comes  hard. 

Phil  had  no  sub-trade.  He  was,  as  he 
was  fond  of  boasting,  "jes  a  nachel  fiddlin' 
fiddler,  f'om  de  ground  up."  Indeed,  he  so 
loved  his  art — there  are  arts  the  practice  of 
which  in  certain  conditions  reduces  them 
to  trades — that  he  often  said: 

"Ef  de  Lord  '11  on'y  gimme  a  stiddy  job 
at  fiddlin'  when  I  git  to  heaven,  'stid  o' 
tacklin'  a  clumsy  ole  harp,  I  know  I  '11  soon 
be  able  to  play  for  de  angels  to  fly  by."  In 
deed,  with  this  thought  in  mind,  he  had  even 
evolved  out  of  his  imaginative  genius  sev 
eral  racy  compositions  which,  with  onoma- 
topoetic  instinct,  he  called  "flipflap  wing- 
pieces,"  which  were  so  suggestive  that  one, 
listening,  might  close  his  eyes  and  fancy 
himself  floating  away  as  in  a  dream  of 
flying. 


62  "Petty  Larceny" 

It  is  hard  on  a  fellow  to  be  engaged  to  be 
married  and  to  have  no  money.  It  is  hard 
even  on  a  Southern  plantation,  where  money 
counts  for  so  little  and  most  available  things 
are  virtually  free — most,  but  not  all. 

Even  while  he  enters  this  vestibule  of 
Hymen's  temple,  no  matter  how  remote  and 
primitive  the  edifice,  a  man  finds  himself 
feeling  for  his  pocket-book. 

Engagement  periods  at  the  Bend  were 
trinket-times  and  tr eating-times,  and  while 
the  last  was  simply  a  matter  of  ginger-pop 
and  persimmon  beer,  with  a  merry-go- 
round  on  a  holiday,  the  trinket  business  was 
more  serious.  As  to  the  ring,  Phil  was  for 
tunate  enough  to  have  one  on  hand,  an  heir 
loom  in  which  he  took  no  little  pride.  First, 
—  a  fact  which  greatly  distinguished  it,— 
it  was  of  pure  gold,  and  it  had  been  given 
by  his  father  to  his  mother  as  a  pledge  of 
good  faith  and  affection  in  lieu  of  the  cere 
mony  which  a  strained  situation  forbade. 


"Petty  Larceny' 63 

Phil  had  often  told  the  story  as  he  showed 
the  ring.  It  seems  that,  in  their  courting 
days,  his  parents  had  quarreled,  and  dur 
ing  a  brief  estrangement  a  clever  rival  had 
"married  his  daddy  offhand,"  as  Phil  ex 
pressed  it;  whereupon  she  who  was  after 
ward  his  mother,  instantly,  and  for  all  time, 
relented.  It  was  too  late  then  for  a  wed 
ding,  of  course ;  but  the  mother  was  appa 
rently  not  one  to  worry  over  trifles,  as  she 
is  quoted  as  boasting  that  all  her  rival  got 
was  a  "paper  citi/zcate,"  and  that  so  long 
as  she  had  the  man  and  the  ring,  she  was 
satisfied. 

As  to  the  marriage  certificate,  she,  after 
a  while,  remarked: 

"She  's  welcome  to  de  paper  one.  Hit  's 
dead  stock.  I  got  mine,  an'  it  's  live 
prop'ty — de  spittin'  image  of  its  daddy; 
an'  dat  's  all  de  citi/zcate  I  wants." 

This  bit  of  character  discovers  to  us  a 
somewhat  romantic  vein  in  both  parents 


64 "Petty  Larceny" 

which  it  is  well  for  us  to  remember  if  we 
would  follow  Phil's  life  with  leniency  and 
affection. 

His  father  died  while  he  was  still  a  little 
chap,  and  his  mother,  after  a  few  months  of 
rank  weeds  and  of  wailing  in  the  wilds  of 
widowhood — a  prerogative  freely  accorded 
her  by  popular  sympathy,  which  declared 
her  to  be  "de  on'iest  widder  dat  had  a 
right  to  tote  a  weed" — suddenly  darted 
into  another  romance  with  an  ardor  worthy 
of  love's  first  kindling.  The  new  "step 
father-man"  was  decided  in  his  antipathy 
to  reminiscent  children,  and  so,  after  a 
brief  conflict  between  conjugal  duty  and 
parental  love,  the  woman  decided  not  to 
hazard  her  boy's  welfare  by  taking  him 
among  strangers.  She  preferred  to  "loan 
him  out"  to  friends  who  had  known  his 
people.  So  she  did,  and  the  boy  had  stayed 
"loaned  out"  all  his  days.  She  had  proba 
bly  foreseen  that  this  would  be  the  case, 


"Petty  Larceny"  65 

as,  in  going,  she  had  given  him  his  father's 
ring, — and  hers, — with  the  parting  injunc 
tion  to  keep  it  all  his  life  "to  show  dat  he 
was  honest-born." 

Petty,  of  course,  knew  about  the  ring 
and  that  she  would  now  become  its  proud 
owner  by  inheritance — and,  indeed,  this  was 
the  one  thing  in  her  marriage  in  which  she 
felt  confessed  pride;  and  when  at  last  she 
was  able  to  pass  her  shapely  hand  around 
to  let  her  friends  see  it, — put  on  with  a 
wish,  it  could  not  be  removed, — she  would 
smilingly  declare: 

"Oh,  yas,  it  's  de  reel  thing." 

The  design  «was  the  old  favorite, — two 
hands  clasped, — and  Phil  honestly  re 
garded  it  as  a  mascot.  He  told  Petty  so, 
and  that  its  motto  was,  "Whom  I  jine  to 
gether  let  not  man  or  woman  put  asunder." 
He  knew  that  the  one  woman  who  had  tried 
it  once  had  gotten  only  "paper  satisfaction." 

So  Phil  had  lived  about  in  various  homes 


66  "Petty  Larceny" 

as  he  grew  up,  and  once,  for  a  brief  period, 
even  in  the  cabin  where  hung  a  certain 
hated  document,  deep  in  cotton  plush  and 
cheap  gilding. 

On  his  mother's  departure,  "the  other 
woman"  had  made  what  he  called  "step- 
mammy  motions"  toward  him,  and  would 
have  taken  him  for  good.  He  refused 
to  go  near  her  for  a  long  time;  but 
finally  realizing  that,  after  all,  there  was  a 
sort  of  relationship  which  might,  perhaps, 
as  well  be  happily  interpreted,  or,  possibly, 
only  because  he  liked  her  picnic  pies,  he 
tried  it — for  less  than  a  week. 

It  was  said  that  he  was  actually  sitting 
at  her  board  and  with  his  mouth  so  full  of 
apple-pie  that  he  got  more  coppery  in  the 
face  than  the  provocation  would  have  war 
ranted  when  she  unwittingly  referred  to 
his  father  as  her  beloved  husband,  where 
upon  Phil  retorted  hotly: 

"Husban'i  Don't  you  say  husban'  to 
me!  Ef  you  do,  I  '11  smash  up  dat  ole 


"Petty  Larceny"  67 

paper  citi/zcate,  an'  turn  you  back  into  a' 
ole  maid,  whar  you  b'longs." 

Of  course  he  could  not  remain  after 
this.  When  he  had  related  the  incident  to 
his  friends,  there  were  many  who  thought 
him  very  forbearing  not  to  have  destroyed 
the  paper  then  and  there,  and  he  declared 
that  he  would  have  done  so  "ef  she  had  n't 
'a'  been  a  lady  and  he  in  her  house."  And 
then  he  added:  "Anyhow,  I  could  n't  'a' 
had  de  heart  to  do  it,  bein'  as  it  's  all  she  's 
got." 

Phil's  peculiar  orphanage  and  his  ex 
ceptional  aloneness  had  placed  him  on  the 
welcome  list  in  almost  any  home  on  the 
plantation.  He  was  a  fair  kindling-splitter, 
a  milker,  and,  in  a  dilettante  way,  a  gar 
dener,  so  that  he  could  make  good  his 
"keep"  without  having  often  to  draw  upon 
an  inadequate  purse.  Of  course,  too,  the 
family  with  whom  he  stayed  always  had 
free  music,  morn,  noon,  and  night. 

Once  or  twice  he  had  had  to  change  his 


68 "Petty  Larceny" 

quarters  because  of  the  conversion  to 
religion  of  his  host  or  hostess,  who  could 
not,  of  course,  harbor  the  devil's  instrument 
after  having  forsworn  his  majesty  himself. 

So  he  had  changed  his  last  home  before 
going  to  live  with  old  Aunt  Cynthy  Crow, 
with  whom  he  was  staying  at  the  time  of 
his  engagement.  Aunt  Cynthy  was  a  hope 
less  cripple  from  rheumatism,  being  unable 
so  much  as  to  rise  from  her  chair ;  and  when 
she  heard  that  her  friend  Betty  Bent,  re 
cently  reclaimed  from  sin,  had  said  that 
she  had  hated  to  send  Phil  away,  but  she 
could  not  seek  God  with  her  heart  in  the 
cabin  while  the  devil  kept  tantalizing  her 
feet,  she  chuckled  in  reply: 

"I  'd  be  so  tickled  to  git  my  ole  daid 
foots  into  trouble,  wid  fiddle  or  devil  or 
whatever,  dat  ef  Phil  '11  come  an'  wake  'em 
up  for  me,  I  '11  find  'im  for  his  pains." 

To  "find  him"  was  to  board  him,  of 
course,  and  although  Phil  did  not  take  this 


"Petty  Larceny"  69 

generous  offer  more  literally  than  it  was 
meant,  he  made  a  very  economical  arrange 
ment  with  the  old  woman,  who  was  a  pen 
sioner  on  the  bounty  of  her  former  master 
and  was  only  too  glad  of  the  chance  service 
of  Phil's  willing  hands,  as  well  as  of  the 
diversion  of  his  music. 

Never  was  happier  combination  than 
that  of  the  lonely  old  cripple  and  the  light 
weight  fiddler,  Phil  Phillips.  Mirth  and 
melody  ever  follow  the  rosined  bow,  and 
merriment,  if  it  does  not  mock,  is,  the  world 
over,  a  grateful  antidote  for  pain. 

The  cabin,  which  for  years  had  been  a 
favorite  resort  for  condoling  decrepitude, 
became,  through  the  cheerful  invitation  of 
the  strings,  love's  trysting-place  and  a  con 
stant  scene  of  gaiety  and  fun.  Most  of  the 
mothers  on  the  place  were  pleased  to  have 
it  so,  too,  knowing  the  value,  through  its 
antithesis,  of  the  resident  chaperon.  It 
was  the  anxious  mother  of  several  daugh- 


70 "Petty  Larceny' 

ters  who  was  heard  to  remark  to  God  one 
night,  as  she  knelt  in  prayer  beside  her  bed : 

"Yas,  Lord,  Sis'  Cynthy  is  fiddle-proof 
herself,  an'  she  '11  keep  a  stiddy  watch  on 
de  chillen,  an'  'stribute  Scripcher  to  'em 
'twix'  de  fiddle-strings — in  po'tions." 

Perhaps  old  Cynthy  was  the  only  person 
on  the  place  who  was  grieved  that  Phil 
was  to  be  married,  and  for  natural,  if  self 
ish,  reasons.  It  saddened  her  inexpressibly 
to  contemplate  a  return  to  the  somber, 
pain-filled  days,  with  only  the  questionable 
solace  of  her  contemporaries. 

Phil  and  Petty,  having  loved  these  many 
years, — Petty,  it  seems,  suddenly  discov 
ered  this  to  have  been  true  of  herself  as 
well  as  of  Phil, — were  of  one  mind  as  to 
an  early  marriage,  though  the  maid  was  a 
trifle  coy  on  the  subject,  as  will  appear 
from  her  answer  to  her  romantic  lover  when 
he  begged  that  she  promise  to  walk  to 
church  with  him  at  the  first  robin's  call. 


"Petty  Larceny"  71 

"No,  I  ain't  gwine  do  it,  Phil.  I  ain't 
gwine  to  walk  up  de  aisle  till  I  kin  wear 
a  bunch  o'  sweet-pea  blossoms." 

Whereupon  Phil,  doubling  with  laughter, 
howled  that  it  was  "allus  a  close  race  'twix' 
de  robins  an'  de  peas,"  and  they  held  hands 
in  the  narrow  path,  refusing  Indian  file 
while  they  made  the  Indian  tracks,  one  after 
another,  and  life  was  all  a  dream  of  bird- 
song  and  flower  for  them. 

They  agreed,  however,  that  either  bird 
call  or  blossom  might  sound  the  wedding- 
bell  :  and  that  very  night  Phil  set  a  trap  for 
robins  and  put  it,  baited  with  crumbs,  up 
on  Aunt  Cynthy's  roof ;  and  the  girl  thought 
it  would  n't  hurt  to  sow  peas  in  a  box, 
even  if  they  did  n't  sprout  until  the  ground 
thawed  out  in  the  garden. 

This  was  while  the  fields  seemed  as  hard 
as  flint  in  the  black  lands ;  and  although 
there  was  a  good  while  to  wait,  Phil  began 
to  feel  as  care-impressed  as  a  real  family 


72 "Petty  Larceny" 

man  when  he  realized  the  many  demands 
for  money  that  would  come  even  in  the 
fast-shortening  interval.  Yet,  although  he 
had  scarce  silver  dimes  enough  to  jingle 
in  his  pocket,  he  would  have  danced  with 
joy  any  morning  to  discover  a  premature 
robin  in  his  trap,  and  he  always  climbed 
and  peeped,  quite  prepared  for  the  lesser 
miracle  in  his  realization  of  life's  greatest. 

And,  too,  if  God  noticed  a  sparrow,  even 
for  its  own  sake,  why  not  make  a  robin  to 
order  for  love's  cause,  if  need  be?  As  he 
thought  of  all  the  trials  of  the  waiting 
season,  he  often  longed  for  a  hurried  wed 
ding,  which  would  save  a  lot  of  trouble; 
and,  once  over — well,  they  could  manage 
some  way,  money  or  no  money,  as  others 
were  doing  daily. 

But  no  pea  sprouted  and  bloomed  in  a 
night,  and  the  robin's  song  awaited  its  sea 
son,  and,  as  the  weather  grew  milder,  dances 
were  more  sparse;  and  the  little  fiddler 


"Petty  Larceny"  73 

began  to  wish,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life, 
for  "some  sort  o'  workin'  trade,"  and  he 
looked  askance  at  his  beloved  fiddle  and 
said  disputatious  and  disloyal  things  that 
a  darky's  fiddle  could  never  answer  in  its 
legitimate  vocabulary,  which  is  made  only 
of  words  of  mirth  and  jollity. 

So,  pressed  by  present  circumstances 
and  a  sense  of  future  need,  Phil  bethought 
him  of  a  few  simple,  odd  ways  of  earning 
odd  sums,  and  was  able  to  put  trifling 
amounts  by,  against  the  demands  of  the 
wedding. 

For  one  thing, — and  an  eccentric  thing 
it  seemed  on  the  surface, — he  began  to  sell 
his  chickens.  He  had  always  raised  chick 
ens  on  shares  with  the  family  with  whom 
he  stayed.  It  would  seem  that  the  chick 
ens  would  have  been  more  useful  to  him 
in  his  housekeeping  than  the  small  sums 
they  might  bring,  but  "things  are  not  what 
they  seem."  A  great  line,  that ! 


74 "Petty  Larceny" 

It  was  said  that  when  Phil  started  to 
sell  his  chickens  he  never  got  done  selling, 
and  that  the  same  was  true  of  his  potato- 
patch.  It  may  not  have  been  a  fact  that 
he  robbed  the  potato-hills  of  the  fields 
through  which  he  passed  on  his  peddling 
rounds,  but  there  was  no  one  who  doubted 
that  he  sold  chickens  of  breeds  unknown 
to  his  own  yard  and  Cynthy's. 

This  is  a  hard  thing  to  say  of  a  young 
man,  and  would  even  now  be  withheld  by  his 
partial  chronicler  but  for  the  light  of  sub 
sequent  events.  Circumstantial  evidence, 
which  is  often  of  the  devil  and  utterly  mis 
leading  in  itself,  had  yet  some  value  in  cor- 
roboration.  Held  in  abeyance,  it  does  occa 
sionally  help  the  cause  of  truth. 

PHIL  was  greatly  excited  when,  one  night, 
as  he  was  on  his  way  to  see  Petty,  he  met 
a  man  who  had  come  all  the  way  across 
Cockleburr  Bayou  to  tell  him  that  there 


"Petty  Larceny"  75 

was  a  letter  in  the  post-office  for  him.  He 
was  so  nervous  over  it,  having  never  before 
received  a  letter  in  his  life,  that  he  thought 
it  best  not  to  tell  Petty,  lest  she,  too,  might 
share  his  dread  of  impending  news. 

Of  course,  he  thought  first  of  his  mother, 
and  from  that  a  number  of  contingen 
cies  emerged.  There  had  been  ample  time 
for  the  growth  of  "a  whole  step-family" 
since  his  parent's  departure  under  condi 
tions  most  favorable.  He  even  had  a  fear 
that  his  mother  might  be  coming  back,  and 
somehow  he  wondered  if  possibly  she  would 
wish  to  recover  the  ring,  the  only  thing 
she  had  ever  given  him. 

It  was  noon  next  day  when  the  little  fel 
low  got  back  and,  with  the  letter  in  his 
pocket,  hurried  to  his  lady-love. 

He  was  grinning  so  when  they  met  that 
he  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  get  his  lips 
together  to  call  her  name,  and  after  several 
abortive  efforts  to  say  "Petty,"  which  insis- 


76 "Petty  Larceny" 

tently  became  "Fetty,"  he  was  obliged  to 
compromise. 

"H-h-honey,"  he  gasped,  from  away 
down  his  throat,  "what  you  reckon  I  got?" 

"A  robin?"  laughed  Petty. 

This,  for  some  reason,  helped  his  articu 
lation,  so  that  he  was  able  quite  clearly  to 
reply : 

"Better  'n  dat,  Petty;  better  'n  dat!" 

And  when  she  frowned  and  coquettishly 
turned  away,  he  added,  while  he  seized  both 
her  hands : 

"Listen  at  dis:  I  got  a  fifty-dollar  job! 
Dat  what  I  got !  I  got  a  letter — here  it  is 
—  a  letter  Pom  de  president  o'  Pompton 
College  down  heah  at  Yaller  Briar  Wells, 
an'  dey  wants  me  to  come  an'  fiddle  for  'em 
at  dey  anniversal  hops,  every  night  o'  de 
beginnin' — de  commencement,  I  mean  to 
say.  What  you  got  to  say  to  dat?  An'  dey 
offer  me  fifty  dollars  cash  down,  in  hand — 
good  specious  payment !" 


"Petty  Larceny33  77 

The  annual  college  commencement  at 
the  close  of  the  spring  term  was  the  social 
event  of  several  counties,  and  to  play  at  one 
of  the  Pompton  hops  would  be  great  honor 
for  a  resident  of  Sugar  Bend.  It  was  no 
wonder  the  little  fiddler  was  fairly  beside 
himself. 

The  only  trying  feature  in  it  was  his 
having  to  leave  Petty  for  a  short  time;  but 
this  was  easily  borne,  in  vieAv  of  their  com 
mon  advantage.  It  was  bad  to  go,  but  the 
going  was  a  great  affair.  Twenty-odd 
miles  by  road  in  his  own  little  wagon,  in 
which  he  carried  his  trunk  and  fiddle,  and 
which  he  hoped  to  bring  back  loaded  with 
housekeeping  goods,  was  a  journey  need 
ing  considerable  preparation ;  and  so  inti 
mately  was  it  associated  with  his  romance 
that  it  was  commonly  spoken  of  on  the 
place  as  "Phil's  weddin'  trip."  To  this, 
however,  he  laughingly  objected:  "Hit 
ain't  to  say  a  weddin'  trip.  Hit  's  on'y  jes 


78 "Petty  Larceny" 

a  little  journey  in  search  o'  my  marri'ge 
po'tion." 

Under  the  influence  of  her  emotional 
appeal,  Petty  was  easily  induced  to  stay 
with  old  Cynthy  during  Phil's  absence,  and 
it  was  even  arranged  that  they  should  make 
their  home  with  her,  or  that  she  should 
stay  with  them,  turning  her  pension  into 
the  general  housekeeping  fund,  when  they 
should  be  married,  Phil  and  the  fiddle  and 
young  company,  she  declared,  having  "clair 
sp'iled  her  for  lonesome  livin'." 

THE  poor  little  college  town  to  which  Phil 
went  to  make  his  fortune  was  to  his  rural 
vision  a  great  metropolis.  From  the  time 
his  delighted  eyes  had  rested  upon  the  great 
globes  of  color  in  the  apothecary's  window, 
and  had  taken  in  the  papier-mache  grotto 
which  appeared  to  supply  the  soda-foun 
tain,  he  never  experienced  the  least  loss 


"Petty  Larceny" 79 

of  ardor  in  his  admiration  of  city  ways  and 
magnificence. 

Petty's  special  request  as  they  parted 
had  been  for  "a  bureau  wid  a  swingin' 
lookin'-glass  in  it,  dat  '11  gimme  my  hat  one 
minute  an'  tip  over  an'  scoop  up  my  foots 
de  next.  Dat,  an'  a  little  hand-glass  to 
glimpse  my  back  hair,  '11  make  me  b'lieve 
I  'm  all  but  white."  So  she  had  said  at  the 
house  and  repeated  at  the  stile  to  which 
she  rode  beside  her  lover  as  he  went  away. 

He  bought  the  bureau  out  of  his  first 
earnings,  and  had  it  moved  to  his  room  in 
the  servants'  quarters,  and  the  little  key, 
which  fitted  all  the  drawers  alike,  was  soon 
swinging  to  his  silver  watch-chain,  where 
it  daily  grew  in  importance,  as  gewgaws 
for  the  absent  girl  were  constantly  added 
to  its  charge. 

Besides  his  regular  fee,  Phil  made  a  few 
odd  dollars  for  extra  service.  He  was  a 


80  "Petty  Larceny3' 

real  genius  with  his  fiddle,  and  was  con 
stantly  in  requisition. 

With  such,  inspiration  always  at  hand, 
a  dance  was  never  out  of  place,  if  only 
there  were  dancers  and  available  space.  In 
the  mornings  on  the  broad  verandas,  under 
the  trees  at  afternoon  tea — any  time  when 
there  were  a  half-dozen  young  people  to 
gether — the  fiddler  would  be  invited  to 
earn  the  price  of  some  bit  of  tinsel  or  a 
gay  ribbon  for  his  lady. 

His  fiddling  had  made  a  great  hit. 
Everybody  was  talking  about  it,  even  the 
old  professors.  "Why — why,  that  little 
nig — nigger!"  said  one  of  the  portliest 
of  these  one  evening  as  he  mopped  his 
purple  face  after  a  desperate  race  with 
death  through  the  mazes  of  a  Virginia 
reel.  "Have  n't  d-d-done  such  a  thing  in 
f-f-f-forty  years.  Why,  he  'd  m-m-make  a 
chair  dance  if  it  was  n't  dead  wood." 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  familiar  inter- 


"Petty  Larceny"  81 

course  involved  in  such  an  engagement  as 
Phil's  should  lead  him  into  temptation ;  that 
is,  assuming  that  temptation  and  opportun 
ity  are,  for  some,  virtually  synonymous,  as 
seems  pitifully  true. 

Sweet  soap  was  one  of  Phil's  failings, 
and  he  liked  to  think  of  it  in  connection 
with  Petty.  It  was  easy  to  slip  a  cake  into 
his  pocket  now  and  then  as  he  passed  the 
wash-stands,  and  to  deposit  it  in  the 
bureau;  it  was  easy  to  do  this  many  times, 
and  to  add  a  pretty  silk  handkerchief  or  a 
bottle  of  smelling-stuff,  and,  after  a  time, 
occasionally,  even  a  trifling  bit  of  jewelry. 
He  always  left  the  handsome  articles  un 
disturbed — watch-chains,  which  sometimes 
seemed  fairly  to  tug  at  his  sleeves,  and 
jeweled  rings,  though  he  did  once  get  off 
with  a  fine  coat  belonging  to  a  fellow  of 
about  his  own  size. 

These  peculations  were  comparatively 
slight,  and  always  effected  in  the  face  of 


82 "Petty  Larceny' 

great  opportunities,  with  both  valuables 
and  money  in  sight.  There  were  always 
rolls  of  bills  lying  about  with  the  pipes 
and  tobacco — not  great  bills,  in  a  little 
Southern  college,  but  good  green  dollars, 
with  an  occasional  V  for  affluent  expression. 

Phil  selected  the  times  when  these  were 
most  in  evidence,  for  refutation,  to  take  the 
little  things  he  dared;  and  consequently, 
although  articles  were  often  missed,  it  was 
a  long  time  before  he  was  even  suspected* 
At  last,  however,  one  of  the  fellows  set  a 
trap — a  fellow  who  had  himself  a  fad  for 
fine  soap,  and  had  lost  several  cakes,  as 
well  as  a  locket. 

The  trap  was  successful,  and  the  result 
was  really  sad.  It  spoiled  a  whole  evening 
for  the  boys,  who  had  all  grown  fond  of  the 
little  fiddler  and  had  heard  somewhat  of  his 
story.  They  knew  he  was  to  be  married, 
and  had  even  proposed  to  chip  in  to  buy 
a  little  present  for  his  wedding. 


Sweet  soap  was  one  of  Phil's  failings 


"Petty  Larceny" 85 

They  did  n't  say  anything  to  him  that 
night,  although  every  fellow  counted  his 
small  belongings  and  put  his  money  out  of 
sight.  Indeed,  they  did  not  speak  of  it  at 
all,  beyond  the  circle,  though  they  expressed 
an  intention  of  doing  so  the  next  day.  Un 
fortunately,  however,  the  thing  got  out,  and 
one  of  the  boys — one  who  had  lost  a  shoe- 
buttoner  or  something — had  him  arrested. 

There  was  probably  never  in  any  sore 
strait  a  more  surprised  and  frightened 
young  culprit  than  was  poor  Phil  the  day 
he  was  seized  and  taken  to  the  court-house. 
He  had  never  been  in  such  a  place  before, 
and  it  was  an  awful  experience. 

There  were  several  cases  ahead  of  his 
when  he  got  in,  and  he  had  time  to  sit  and 
think. 

The  very  imposing  elevation  of  the  judge's 
seat  was  disconcerting,  and  the  impressive 
"your  honor"  with  which  he  was  addressed 
struck  new  terror  through  Phil's  already 


86 "Petty  Larceny3 

cringing  soul.  It  was  a  judgment-day  ex 
perience. 

When,  at  last,  his  case  was  called  and  he 
stepped  forward,  his  knees  knocked  together 
so  that  he  came  near  falling.  He  had  been 
guilty  of  things  long  ago  at  home,  and  had 
had  dim  but  frightful  visions  of  exposure 
and  arrest,  all  somewhat  like  the  present, 
but  falling  short  of  the  real  thing,  which 
was,  indeed,  aggravated  by  contrast  with  his 
recent  notable  experiences.  He  had  had  a 
good  time  and  had  been  well  treated,  and 
he  was  not  a  bad  fellow  at  heart. 

The  black  giant,  the  sheriff's  deputy  who 
had  arrested  him,  and  who  even  now  towered 
beside  him,  had  told  him  frankly  that  he  had 
been  "ketched  stealin',"  and  so  he  realized 
dimly,  or  thought  he  did,  what  was  before 
him.  He  knew  precisely  where  each  stolen 
article  lay  hidden,  and  he  realized  that  the 
little  key  hanging  plainly  on  his  fob,  and 
which  had  been  so  satisfactory  an  accom- 


"Petty  Larceny"  87 

plice,  would  easily  "turn  State's  evidence" 
and  go  far  to  convict  him  if  it  were  brought 
into  the  case ;  but  he  was  glad  to  remember 
that  none  of  what  he  called  the  "joolry 
pieces"  were  in  the  bureau.  Fearing  that  it 
might  be  opened  during  his  frequent 
absences,  he  had  kept  the  small  incrimin 
ating  things  taken  especially  for  Petty,  pru 
dently,  or  imprudently,  about  his  person. 

So,  while  he  awaited  his  turn,  he  had 
thought  fast,  and  it  had  soon  seemed  best  to 
deny  everything  and  then  to  offer  his  key, 
trusting  to  explain  away  such  trifles  as 
would  be  found. 

A  man  had  a  right  to  suppose  that  gen 
tlemen  would  n't  take  account  of  trifles  such 
as  these,  but  if  they  really  wanted  them  he 
would  insist  upon  returning  them.  It  is 
true,  there  was  the  coat;  but  it  was  not  in 
the  bureau.  It  hung  behind  a  door  in  a 
closet,  and,  unless  it  had  been  missed,  would 
not  be  found.  Or,  if  it  came  to  the  worst, 


88  "Petty  Larceny3 

even  the  coat  might  be  disposed  of  by  a 
judicious  game  of  bluff.  How  easy  to 
gather  up  two  coats  instead  of  one  in  a 
hurry,  and  how  possible  unconsciously  to 
take  both  home  on  one's  arm,  on  a  warm 
night  when  the  overcoat  was  superfluous ! 

'The  situation  had  its  weak  points,  cer 
tainly,  but  it  might  have  been  worse. 

Indeed,  there  were  many  features  in  it 
which  appeared  providential,  and  the  little 
man  in  his  extremity  even  had  the  effrontery 
to  thank  God,  as  he  stood  there,  that  he  had 
been  given  foresight  to  keep  the  jewelry  out 
of  the  bureau. 

He  thought  that  he  had  the  case  fairly 
well  in  hand  while  he  waited,  and  that  in 
assuming  the  lofty  height  of  injured  inno 
cence  he  might  yet  walk  out  a  free  man. 

But  there  was  something  in  the  atmo 
sphere  of  the  place  which  sickened  him  and 
made  his  head  swim,  and  the  longer  he 
stood  and  waited,  the  sicker  he  felt,  so  that 


"Petty  Larceny"  89 

when,  out  of  the  stillness  following  the  per 
emptory  gavel,  he  heard  his  own  name 
called,  "Phil  Phillips!"  in  a  tone  which 
sounded  sepulchral  and  far  away,  he  turned 
gray  and  then  even  green  where  the  blue 
fright  showed  through  the  yellow  of  his 
skin,  around  his  mouth  and  nostrils,  and 
about  the  edges  of  his  hair. 

Still,  he  had  life  enough  to  know  that  he 
must  answer,  and  inexperience  enough  to 
reply,  in  a  vibrant  metallic  voice: 

"Yas,  sir,  yo'  'oner'ble  'onor,  dat  's  me." 

The  judge,  a  benignant  old  man,  turned 
a  smiling  face  upon  the  little  fellow  as, 
with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  he  replied: 

"Yes,  I  see  you  are  there." 

Then,  turning  to  the  officer  beside  the 
prisoner,  he  asked: 

"Who  has  been  getting  this  young  man 
into  trouble?  He  got  me  into  trouble  last 
night.  So  stiff  this  morning  I  can  hardly 
walk.  What  is  the  charge?" 


90  "Petty  Larceny" 

"Petit  larceny."  The  reply,  prompt  and 
clear  at  Phil's  side,  rang  through  the 
court-room. 

A  bombshell  exploding  in  his  soul  could 
hardly  have  transformed  Phil  as  did  this 
artless  reply. 

He  was  no  longer  a  poor  prisoner  beg 
ging  for  mercy.  Judge  nor  bench  nor  cere 
monial  had  place  in  his  consciousness  now. 
He  was  instantly  himself  again — Petty 's 
lover  provoked  to  wrath,  the  fighting  ban 
tam  of  Sugar  Bend. 

He  did  not  hesitate.  For  a  second 
the  great  six-footer  beside  him  did  not 
know  what  had  hit  him.  So  sudden  was 
the  plunge  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  entire 
little  man,  all  in  a  tense  tangle,  had  landed 
in  his  face;  and  then,  tooth  and  nail,  as  a 
catamount  grasps  and  tears,  so  he  tore 
right  and  left.  Before  any  one  had  time 
to  realize  what  was  doing,  or  to  interfere, 
the  two  were  rolling  on  the  floor  together, 


"Petty  Larceny' 91 

and  there  was  blood  in  sight  and  fur  flying. 

When,  after  several  minutes  of  this  fierce 
tussle,  the  greater  man  was  at  last  able  to 
hold  his  antagonist  at  arm's-length  and 
several  others  helped  to  get  him  away,  it 
was  necessary  for  the  officer  to  carry  his 
bruised  and  bleeding  visage  out  for  repairs. 

All  this  took  several  minutes,  and  when 
the  small  man  was  next  observed  he  was 
wiping  the  puffy  mass  which  ought  to  have 
been  a  face  and  trying  to  button  the  frag 
ment  of  a  coat  so  that  it  would  cover  his 
shoulders. 

Seeing  that  the  big  man  had  gone,  and 
that  the  court  was  coming  again  into  some 
thing  like  order,  he  turned  up  to  the  judge 
the  single  eye  that  seemed  to  remain, — the 
other  being  quite  lost  to  sight  in  a  fine 
protective  swelling, — and,  bowing  respect 
fully,  he  said: 

"  'Scuse  me,  please,  sir,  yo'  'oner'ble 
'onor,  but  I  was  'bleeged  to  whup  him." 


92  "Petty  Larceny" 

This  brought  down  the  house,  of  course. 
Even  the  judge  shook  with  laughter  at  the 
pluck  of  him. 

"Dey  's  some  things  no  gen'leman  won't 
stand,"  he  went  on.  "An,  now,  ef  deze 
gen'lemen  '11  leggo  my  arms,  dey  '11  see  I  kin 
practise  manners  an'  behavior — when  I 
ain't  insulted." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  insult,  you — you 
little  game-cock,  you?"  The  judge  spoke 
with  an  effort  at  severity,  but  with  a  weak 
ening  of  his  voice.  Still,  the  dignity  of  the 
court  was  at  stake.  "I  wish  you  to  know 
that  the  officer  was  only  doing  his  duty, 
and  you  shall  pay  for  this,  sir." 

"I  '11  pay  whatever  you  say,  yo'  'oner'- 
ble  'onor,  ef  I  kin.  I  know  de  man  done  his 
juty  when  he  fetched  me  heah,  an'  I  walked 
beside  him  peaceable.  But  ef  you  don't  know 
what  he  done  to  insult  me,  sir,  /  knows  it,  an' 
he  knows  it — an'  I  don't  think  he  's  likely 
to  do  it  ag'in.  I  'm  heah  to  stan'  for  my 


"Pet ty  Larceny" 93 

own  actions,  an'  I  don't  want  nobody  else 
tangled  up  wid  it.  Dey  ain't  no  ladies  mixed 
up  in  dis  case,  an'  ef  anybody  fetches  'em 
in,  dey  's  boun'  to  be  blood!  Dis  is  been 
a  fair  man-to-man  fight,  an'  ef  you  '11 
please,  sir,  pass  it  over  an'  tek  up  de  case 
de  way  it  stood  befo'  my  trouble,  I  '11  an 
swer  fair  an'  square.  De  man  dat  's  jes 
stepped  out  a  minute,  he  tol'  me  dat  I  was 
accused  o'  pickin'  up  some  little  odds  an' 
ends,  I  b'lieve;  an'  ef  dat  's  so,  I  'm  heah 
to  answer." 

At  this,  amid  the  cheers  of  the  crowd, 
always  ready  to  espouse  the  cause  of  the 
plucky  under  dog,  the  judge  cleared  his 
throat  and,  calling  for  order,  resumed  the 
case  in  due  form. 

"I  '11  be  jiggered  if  I  won't  do  it  for 
you,"  he  said,  looking  down  at  the  prisoner 
while  he  called  for  the  plaintiff. 

In  answer,  a  young  man  came  forward 
smiling,  and  as  he  looked  down  into  the 


94 "Petty  Larceny* 

one  tiny  peep-hole  that  answered  for  an 
eye,  but  which  held  all  that  was  needed  of 
inquiry  and  intelligence,  and  then  at  the 
benign  visage  of  the  judge,  he  said,  with 
unfeigned  apology: 

"The  fact  is,  your  honor,  a  number  of 
the  fellows  have  been  missing  little  things, 
— all  trifles, — and  finally  some  one  took  a 
shoe-buttoner  off  my  bureau,  and — well, 
a  day  or  so  ago  I  missed  a  locket  with  my 
girl's  picture  in  it.  I  thought  I  would  n't 
mention  this,  but,  really,  now  that  the 
thing  's  out,  I  'd  like  to  say  that  if  he  '11 
give  me  the  picture,  he  can  have  the  but- 
toner,  and  any  old  thing  he  has  besides; 
that  is,  of  course,  if  he  has  it — and  there 
seems  to  be  no  one  else,  and  we  found 
out  he  was  taking  things.  He  bit  on  a 
bait,  you  see,  and  so  we  've  caught  him." 
Turning  now  to  Phil,  he  added: 
"You  hear  what  I  say?  If  you  just  give 
me  back  the  locket  with  the  picture  in  it, 


"Petty  Larceny"  95 

I  '11  let  you  go — so  far  as  I  am  concerned." 

This  was  informal,  but  the  law  gangs  an 
easy  gait  at  such  centers  of  justice  as  Yel 
low  Briar  Wells.  Just  exactly  this  innova 
tion  had  not  occurred  before,  probably,  yet 
that  there  was  nothing  unusual  in  the  spirit 
of  it  was  evinced  by  the  quiet  way  in  which 
it  was  received. 

When  the  young  man  had  done,  the  judge 
regarded  the  prisoner  with  kindly  inquiry 
over  his  gold-rimmed  spectacles. 

"Well,  you  have  heard  the  charge,"  he 
said  evenly.  "What  do  you  say,  prisoner?" 

Phil  hesitated.  The  truth  was,  he  was  in 
momentary  terror  lest  the  man  who  had 
gone  out  should  return.  He  felt  that  he 
evidently  knew  something  about  Petty,  but 
how  much  Phil  could  not  even  surmise. 

The  locket,  with  Phil's  own  tintype  re 
placing  the  girl's  picture  (which  had  gone 
up  in  smoke  and  been  forgotten),  was  by 
this  time  probably  in  Petty's  possession, 


96 "Petty  Larceny" 

for  it  had  been  sent  to  her  by  mail  on  the 
same  day  it  was  missed.  The  man  could 
scarcely  know  of  this ;  and  yet,  what  is 
more  dangerous  than  the  witness  who 
"knows  something"?  In  the  interrogation 
point  lies  an  endless  tragedy  of  doubt. 

After  about  a  half -minute's  silence — it 
seemed  much  more — Phil  turned  his  face 
up  to  the  judge.  He  had  made  several 
peculiar  motions  with  his  arms,  as  if  vainly 
struggling  to  gesticulate,  or  he  was  perhaps 
threatened  with  a  fit.  And  now  he  gasped: 

"Would  you  please,  sir,  yo'  'oner'ble 
'onor,  let  one  o'  de  co't  gyards  come  an' 
pull  off  my  coat?  I  'd  tek  it  off  myse'f,  but 
I  got  a  sort  o'  crick  down  de  spine  o'  my 
back.  I  allus  hates  to  whup  a  big  man." 

When  two  grinning  black  fellows  had 
gotten  the  fragmentary  garment  off,  with 
many  an  ejaculate ry  protest  of  pain  from 
the  wearer,  Phil  ran  his  finger  along  the 
armhole  lining  and  presently  brought  out  a 


Heah  's  a  few  little  trinkers  I  picked  up  heah  an'  dar, 
but  I  ain't  got  no  locket,  jedge" 


"Petty  Larceny"  99 

small  scarf-pin ;  then,  from  farther  along,  a 
collar-button  and  a  pocket-comb. 

As  he  held  them  up  toward  the  judge, 
his  shirt-sleeve,  riddled  to  the  elbow,  fell 
away,  leaving  his  thin  arm  bare. 

"Heah  's  a  few  little  tr inkers  I  picked  up 
heah  an'  dar,  but  I  ain't  got  no  locket, 
jedge.  I  wush  to  Gord  I  did  have  it.  Of 
co'se  I  don't  reckon  I  ought  to  took  deze, 
but  ef  you  '11  look  at  'em  you  '11  see  dey 
ain't  gold  or  diamonds.  I  did  pick  up  a 
watch  dat  I  seen  layin'  roun'  loose  beggin' 
to  be  stole  one  night,  but  I  took  it  home, 
an'  foun'  out  it  was  pyore  gol'," — a  lie, 
this, — "an'  so  I  brung  it  back  de  nex' 
mornin'.  I  don't  want  nobody's  riches. 
I  's  jes  a  plain  man.  But  de  fact  is,  I  was 
riz  up  right  in  de  midst  o'  sech  gran'  gen- 
'lemen, — j edges  an'  lawyers  an'  juries — an' 
j edges,  you  know,  jedge,  —  an'  I  been  used 
to  jes  helpin'  myse'f  to  any  little  left-overs; 
an'  ef  I  would  n't  pick  'em  up,  dey  'd  give 


1 00  "Petty  Larceny" 

'em  to  me.  I  knowed  deze  heah  quality- 
college  yo'ng  men  did  n't  keer  nothin' 
about  such  little  trinkers  as  deze,  an'  I 
was  'feard  dey  mought  forgit  to  give  'em 
to  me, — dey  all  so  took  up  wid  dey  vale- 
dictrums — an' — an'  de  yo'ng  ladies, — an' 
so  I  jes  gethered  'em  up  an'  hid  'em  whar 
nobody  could  n't  find  'em,  tell  I  could  git 
a  chance  to  ax  for  'em.  But,  of  co'se,  ef 
dey  wants  'em,  heah  dey  is." 

He  turned  and  bravely  looked  around  the 
court-room  and  up  along  the  galleries. 

"That  's  my  scarf-pin.  Pass  it  along," 
came  from  a  voice  in  the  back  row. 

"Yes,  and  my  cuff -buttons,"  said  another. 
And  now,  first  a  single  voice  and  then  two 
and  three  together  cried : 

"Where  's  my  soap?" 

"My   soap?" 

"And  mine?" 

"And  my  soap?" 

"And  my  shaving-brush?" 


"Petty  Larceny"  10j|L 

"And  my  soap?" 

At  this  the  bruised  mass  which  did  duty 
as  a  face  took  on  a  pitiful  grin  while  its 
owner  giggled : 

"Lord  have  mussy!  Soap!  Who  'd  'a' 
thought  it?  An*  quality  gen'lemen  at  dat!" 
Then  to  the  judge:  "Maybe  I  is  gethered 
a  few  cakes  o'  soap,  yo'  'oner'ble  'onor, 
f'om  night  to  night — an'  I  '11  'splain  out 
how  I  come  to  do  it,  an'  ef  dey  wants  'em 
back,  all  right.  You  see,  hit  's  purty  hot, 
fiddlin'  in  de  rooms,  an'  my  hand  hit 
sweats,  an'  dat  's  bad  medicine  for  bofe 
bow  an'  strings,  an'  so  I  'd  slip  out  once-t 
in  a  while  an'  wash  my  hands ;  an',  of  co'se, 
arter  I  uses  a  gen'leman's  soap,  I  got  too 
much  respec'  for  'im  to  leave  it  for  'im  to 
sile  his  hands  wid.  But,  as  I  say,  hit  's  all 
whar  dey  kin  git  it.  Is  dey  anything  else 
de  gen'lemen  done  missed?"  He  had  turned 
and  was  facing  the  gallery  again.  It  was 
a  great  bluff.  Indeed,  his  knees  were  hardly 


102  "Petty  Larceny" 

strong  enough  for  it,  for  they  quaked  piti 
fully  while  he  bravely  faced  the  audience. 
He  was  thinking  of  the  coat  and  trusting  to 
luck,  which  seemed  to  be  with  him,  that  it 
had  not  been  missed. 

"How  about  that  locket?"  The  judge 
leaned  over  the  railing  and  eyed  him  with 
telling  scrutiny  as  he  put  the  question. 

"Dis  heah  's  a  confession,  jedge,  yo' 
'oner'ble  'onor.  Hit  ain't  no  denial.  No 
body  did  n't  ax  me  about  dem  little  things 
I  jes  passed  in.  I  say  I  ain't  got  no  locket 
or  no  lady's  picture.  I  nuver  gits  mixed 
up  wid  de  ladies,  nohow,  an'  ef  I  was  to 
see  a  lady's  po'trait  settin'  on  a  pianner, 
for  ninstance,  I  would  n't  dast  to  no  'mo'  'n 
s'lute  it  as  I  passed  by.  But  ef  dat  's  all, 
won't  you  please,  sir,  pass  my  sentence, 
please,  sir,  yo'  'oner'ble  'onor,  an'  for 
Gord's  sake,  mek  it  light,  or  tu'n  me  loose, 
one.  S'posin'  you  take  de  vote,  jedge, 
'mongst  deze  gen'lemen,  an'  ef  dey  wants 


"Petty  Larceny"  103 

me  seized  an'  sol'  for  debt— or  whatever— 
let  'em  sesso." 

The  judge  assumed  a  look  of  mock  so 
lemnity  as  he  glanced  about  the  court. 

"Let  'im  go,"  laughed  a  voice  in  the 
gallery. 

"Turn  'im  loose,  judge,"  said  another. 

"Keep  my  soap  to  wash  your  conscience 
with." 

"And  mine,  too." 

"No,  you  can  bring  back  mine.  It  's 
green,  and  smells  like  violets,"  cried  a 
changing  voice  in  the  front  row,  at  which 
there  was  laughter. 

"Oh,  but  let  'im  off,  judge;  he  's  sick," 
the  boy  continued. 

"I  keep  thinking  about  that  locket," 
pursued  the  judge,  this  time  addressing  the 
owner  of  the  missing  article. 

"Well,"  he  replied,  "if  he  has  n't  got  it, 
he  has  n't,  that  's  all;  and  I  don't  believe 
he  has.  It  's  possible  that  a  fellow  I  know 


104  "Petty  Larceny" 

has  it.  Let  him  go,  judge.  I  withdraw 
the  complaint." 

"Well,"  the  old  justice  straightened  him 
self  until  he  seemed  to  Phil,  standing  below 
him,  a  mile  high — "well,  that  's  all  very 
well,  so  far  as  the  charge  is  concerned, 
but  I  have  a  little  business  with  the  pris 
oner  on  my  own  account.  My  court  is 
not  exactly  a  place  for  free  fights,  and  so 
I  fine  you,  sir,  twenty-five  dollars,  or  im 
prisonment  for  ten  days,  whichever  you 
say." 

"Well,  of  co'se,  I  '11  take  de  twenty-five 
dollars,  ef  you  please,  sir." 

"You  don't  take  it — you  pay  it,  you 
idiot!" 

"Pay  what,  for  Gord's  sake?  Pay 
twenty-five  dollars?  Why,  jedge,  I  ain't 
got  but  three  comin'  to  me,  an'  I  got  to  go 
home.  I  can't  pay  what  I  ain't  got.  But— 
but — "  a  light  came  into  his  manner — his 
face  was  a  closed  book — "I  tell  yer  what 


"Petty  Larceny" 105 

I  '11  do :  I  '11  play  it  out  for  yer.  I  '11  fiddle 
for  yer  tell  I  draps,  howsomever,  when- 
somever,  wharsomever  you  say,  sir." 

This  brought  down  the  house. 

In  the  midst  of  the  laughter,  the  judge 
took  out  his  watch. 

"It  's  dinner-time,  boys,  and  I  'm  hun 
gry,"  he  said,  rising.  "I  'm  going  over  to 
the  hotel,  and  you  fetch  him  along  and  give 
him  his  fiddle-" 

He  turned  to  Phil. 

"And  when  I  've  got  enough  music  I  '11 
say  go,  and  when  I  say  go,  you  git!  Do  you 
hear?  Light  out  o'  this  town  by  the  first 
train.  D'  you  hear,  I  say?" 

"Yas,  sir;  oh,  thanky,  sir,  yo'  'oner'ble 
'onor,  thanky." 

IT  was  long  past  midnight  when  the  little 
fiddler  mounted  the  seat  of  his  wagon  and 
started  on  his  homeward  drive,  the  bureau, 
with  its  treasures  untouched,  lying  face 


106  "Petty  Larceny' 

downward  in  the  wagon-bed  behind  him,  its 
glass  resting  upon  a  pile  of  hay. 

He  started  in  his  rags,  and  drove  pretty 
fast  until  he  reached  a  barn  a  few  miles 
out,  where  he  found  entertainment  for  him 
self  and  beast,  and  where  he  slept  the  sleep 
of  the  vanquished  and  the  weary. 

Taking  the  journey  by  easy  stages,  doing 
a  little  cautious  peddling  in  the  twilights 
en  route, — robbing  Peter  to  pay  poor  Paul, 
— he  was  three  whole  days  on  the  way,  and 
they  were  days  of  needed  healing  and  re 
cuperation,  too. 

His  face  had  not  been  quite  normal 
when  he  left  home,  so  its  battered  state 
would  prove  less  startling  than  it  might 
have  been.  It  would  be  accepted  as  a  mat 
ter  of  course.  His  friends  were  used  to  it. 

Indeed,  the  days  of  hiding  in  which  'he 
slept  whenever  his  way  led  across  a  clear 
ing,  and  the  nights  of  easy  travel,  inter 
spersed  with  snatches  of  rest,  all  supple- 


"Petty  Larceny"  109 

meriting  a  fortnight  of  ease  and  high  living, 
brought  him  out  so  wonderfully  that  when 
he  drove  into  the  plantation  gate,  late  the 
third  night,  the  jubilant  song  with  which 
he  announced  his  return  was  but  a  spon 
taneous  expression  of  his  own  exuberance. 

Petty  met  him  at  the  stile  where  he  had 
left  her — where,  indeed,  she  had  waited  for 
two  nights. 

"Well,  heah  I  is,  Sugar-pie,  bureau  an' 
all,"  he  chuckled  as,  leaning  down,  he  drew 
her  up  beside  him. 

"An'  you  sho  looks  fine — an'  feels  slick. 
Sto'  clo'es  shows  out,  even  in  de  moon 
light."  She  was  passing  her  hand  along 
his  sleeve,  her  left  hand  over  his  left  sleeve 
—on  her  left,  his  position  making  this  come 
natural. 

"Yas,"  he  replied;  "dis  coat  purty  nigh 
broke  me,  dat  's  a  fac'.  Hit  takes  fine 
feathers  to  mate  wid  a  fine  bird.  But  wait 
tell  you  see  what  I  got  for  my  sweetness  in 


110  "Petty  Larceny" 

de  bureau  back  in  de  wagon.  I  tell  yer  I 
got  yo'  trousseau,  so  dat  when  you  turns 
out  you  '11  wake  up  de  plantation." 

"I  bet  you  spent  all  you  made.  How 
much  money  is  you  brung  home,  anyhow?" 

"Not  much,  to  be  sho ;  but  you  know 
hit  takes  money  to  live  like  a  gen'leman, 
an'  I  knowed  you  would  n't  want  me  to — " 

"Of  co'se  not.  I  wants  you  to  stand 
wid  de  best.  So  you  got  de  bureau,  is  you 
— wid  a  tip-over  merror?" 

"Yas,  an'  dat  ain't  all.  What  's  de 
matter  wid  me,  forgittin'  de  princip'lest 
thing  I  brung  you!  Look  heah,  gal." 

As  he  spoke,  he  leaned  forward,  lifted  a 
small  basket  from  under  the  seat,  and  laid 
it  upon  her  lap. 

"Heah  's  you'  robin-bird,  Sugar.  Found 
'im  waitin'  in  de  woods,  huntin'  for  me. 
What  you  say  to  dat?" 

In  leaning  over,  his  face  had  brushed  a 
bunch  of  flowers  upon  her  shoulder. 


"Petty  Larceny"  111 

"Bless  goodness!  Sweet  peas!  Well, 
I  '11  be  doggoned !"  he  chuckled.  "How 
long  '11  it  take  to  make  de  weddin'  cakes  ?" 

"Aunt  Cynthy  ain't  done  nothin'  but 
whup  up  cake-batter  on  'er  lap  ever  sence 
de  peas  begin  to  bud,  a  week  ago  Sunday. 
Dey  all  ready.  But  you  better  turn  dis 
robin  loose.  He  's  all  but  smothered." 

"Yas,  I  reckon  he  is — an'  I  'spec'  he  's 
got  his  pardner  back  yonder  in  de  woods, 
too,  an'  I  knows  how  he  feels.  But  he  '11 
know  de  way  back." 

As  she  lifted  the  lid,  the  bird  rose  and, 
with  a  great  cry,  darted  backward  into  the 
night. 


THE  HAIR  OF  THE  DOG 


THE  HAIR  OF  THE  DOG 


EVIATHAN,  commonly  known  on  the 
plantation  as  Levi,  was  nine  years 
old,  yellow  as  to  color,  wide-eyed  and  wise 
— yes,  wise,  although  he  had  to  spell  the 
hard  words  in  his  First  Reader  lesson — 
for  Levi  "saw  things"  denied  to  the  vision 
of  ordinary  mortals. 

This  seems  like  cramming  description  a 
little,  perhaps,  and,  after  all,  it  is  scarcely 
adequate  in  presenting  the  boy's  picture. 

There  was  something  weird  about  the  lad 
— an  "other  world"  look,  one  would  almost 
say,  such  as  that  which  distinguishes  the 
blue-white  face  of  the  babe  who  is  yet  on 
the  danger  side  of  his  two-year-old  teeth, 

115 


116        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

from  him  who  has  passed  over.  His  head 
was  a  little  too  heavy  for  his  slim  neck;  his 
wistful  eyes  too  big  for  his  wizened  face. 
His  yellow  skin  bore  a  perennial  crop  of 
irregular  freckles  which  matched  his  foxy 
hair  in  hue,  adding  a  touch  of  comedy  to 
an  otherwise  tragically  serious  visage — 
tragically  serious,  that  is,  when  it  was  in 
repose. 

Levi  tended  the  fires  and  assisted  in  wait 
ing  at  the  table  of  the  great-house,  which 
is  to  say  he  straggled  in  laden  with  kindling- 
wood  behind  Pluto,  the  portly  dignitary 
who  was  responsible  for  the  fires — and  at 
meal-times  he  wielded  the  fly-fan  in  season 
or  fetched  in  relays  of  hot  waffles  from  the 
kitchen,  taking  for  this  service  the  whispered 
orders  of  Marigold,  the  fat  waitress  upon 
whose  stalwart  shoulders  the  dignity  of  the 
dining-room  safely  rested. 

And,  just  because  he  was  so  slim  and  in 
adequate —  "so  peaked  and  puny"  his  kins- 


The  butler 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        119 

woman,  the  cook,  had  it — and  because,  of 
all  the  piccaninnies  on  the  place,  he  had 
least  of  that  elusive  quality  called  "pres 
ence,"  the  mirthful  mistress  of  the  manse 
generally  referred  to  him  as  "the  butler," 
thus,  with  one  swift  stroke,  converting  the 
ultra-serious  lad  into  a  cheerful  grotesque. 

*As  a  fact,  Levi  was  nothing  if  not  both 
serious  and  gleeful — nothing  if  not  pictur 
esque,  as  he  sidled  about  the  dining-room, 
his  serio-comic  expression  always  bearing  a 
palpable  relation  to  a  grin.  And  yet,  al 
though  he  seemed  ever  trying  not  to  laugh 
or  getting  over  a  giggling  spell,  the  rever 
sion  in  repose  was  always  to  the  weird  look 
of  one  who  "sees  things." 

The  boy's  toilets  may  have  conduced 
somewhat  to  grotesqueness  of  effect,  too,  as 
the  one  thing  distinguishing  about  them  was 
that  they  were  always  misfits,  eclectic  in 
character,  and  never  by  any  chance  new. 

From  long  to   short  trousers   and  back 


120        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

again,  in  and  out  of  suspenders  by  way  of 
twine  or  buttons,  or  even  an  occasional 
safety-pin,  he  passed  with  the  same  engag 
ing  naivete  that  distinguished  his  promis 
cuous  use  or  disuse  of  shoes,  or  the  mating 
of  pairs  apparently  predestined  to  estrange 
ment,  as  a  lax  congress  gaiter  with  the  re 
mains  of  a  red-topped  boot,  or  even,  as  on 
one  occasion,  one  of  his  mistress's  dis 
carded  boudoir  slippers  of  blue  suede  mated 
with  a  rubber  overshoe,  the  latter  doing 
double  duty  in  supplementing  the  deficiency 
of  a  footless  sock  and  the  connection  made 
good  by  the  service  of  an  old  necktie  of  plaid 
fastened  in  an  impressive  bow-knot  over  the 
depression  which  marked  the  instep. 

After  becoming  accustomed  to  Levi  in  his 
motley  livery,  one  soon  came  to  feel  it  to 
be  an  essential  feature  of  his  personality 
and  would  scarcely  have  liked  to  see  him  in 
conventional  store  clothes. 

As   he   was,   a   variegated  wizened  little 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        121 

composite,  it  was  easy  to  accord  him  any 
occult  sense  to  which  he  might  lay  claim, 
and  so,  when  he  stood  apart  from  the  other 
children  and  boasted  of  his  "speritual 
visiom,"  it  seemed  that  he  might  be  telling 
the  truth. 

"  'Co'se  I  sees  sperits,"  he  would  declare, 
looking  far  afield  as  he  spoke.  "I  sees  'em 
— an'  I  hears  'em.  Dey  calls  me,  caze  I 
was  borned  wid  a  call!"  If  he  took  his  caul 
easily,  phonetically,  to  suit  himself,  what 
was  the  difference?  Some  of  the  early 
prophets  could  not  write  their  names,  and 
Joshua  knew  no  better  than  to  "command 
the  sun  to  stand  still." 

Levi's  favorite  and  personal  ghost  seems 
to  have  been  a  tall,  headless  apparition 
whom  he  frequently  met  in  lonely  places 
after  nightfall  —  at  the  wood-pile  beyond 
the  cherokee  hedge ;  in  the  cow-lot,  when 
milking  was  done;  or  anywhere  along  the 
winding  length  of  "pecan  lane"  which  led 


122        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

by  devious  ways  to  the  quarters — so  that, 
when  duty  required  him  to  go  out  alone 
after  sundown,  he  had  more  than  once  been 
known  to  shirk. 

His  particular  spook  he  always  consist 
ently  described  as  a  "tall,  no-haid  man"  who 
suddenly  confronted  him,  always  nodding 
or  bowing  low  with  his  headless  shoulders 
— not  a  cheerful  figure  for  any  of  us  to 
meet  along  life's  shadowy  byways,  to  be 
sure. 

It  is  accounted  unfortunate  for  the  very 
young  and  inexperienced  to  find  themselves 
too  often  heard,  and  so  it  proved  in  the  case 
of  Levi,  the  butler.  A  man  who  sees  one 
ghost  may  be  accredited  with  seeing  a  dozen, 
and  it  was  a  matter  of  easy  fluency  for  the 
imaginative  boy  to  add  pictorial  features  to 
stories  which  might  so  obviously  grow  with 
out  limit  excepting  that  which  credence  al 
lows.  And  so,  sometimes,  when  the  lad 
seemed  to  be  gaining  too  much  headway 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        123 

in  extravagant  recital,  Charity,  the  cook, 
would  call  out  from  her  kitchen  window : 

"Quit  yo'  lyin',  Levi!"  To  which  the 
boy  always  opposed  a  ready  denial: 

"I  ain't  lyin',  Aun'  Charity !  I  on'y  wusht 
I  was  lyin'.  I  'd  be  sleepin'  better!  I 
knows  what  I  sees,  an'  I  'd  be  lyin'  ef  I  'd 
deny  it!" 

Rather  a  clever  defense  for  a  nine-year-old 
piccaninny,  and  it  had  its  effect,  too,  even 
upon  the  mind  of  his  ever  alert  kinswoman, 
who  scarcely  knew  sometimes  whether  the 
deep-set  eyes  of  her  young  nephew  might 
not  really  be  "seeing  things,"  after  all. 

And  so  the  habit  grew  and  Levi  was 
threatened  with  unsavory  distinction  in  more 
ways  than  one.  Light  speech  is  said  to 
lead  to  light  fingers,  and  the  boy  who  saw 
large  objects  suddenly  appear  was  soon 
gaining  a  reputation  for  making  small 
ones  as  mysteriously  disappear,  as  if  by  a 
sort  of  magic. 


124        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

He  had  only  to  pass  through  a  room 
without  stopping  and  the  cake  of  pink  mar- 
belized  sweet  soap  which  had  lain  plainly 
in  sight  would  be  there  no  more,  and 
the  same  happened  to  alluring  sweets  care 
lessly  left  to  the  dangers  of  his  swift  pass 
ages  through  the  house  and,  even  more  par 
ticularly,  to  trifling  coins.  And,  as  has 
been  known  before,  the  boy  who  would 
never  fail  to  fetch  in  to  his  mistress  the 
pocket-book  which  she  had  let  fall  or  the  bit 
of  jewelry — or  even  a  dollar  bill — could 
outrank  the  professional  prestidigitator  in 
causing  to  disappear  such  attractive  trink 
ets  as  it  never  seemed  worth  while  to  pursue 
beyond  a  first  inquiry. 

Strange  to  say,  the  boy  was  never  detected 
in  theft,  never  exactly  taken  red-handed— 
and,  indeed,  it  must  be  said  that  nobody  really 
wished  to  convict  him  and  the  family  habit 
was  rather  to  hope  that  he  had  n't  been 
guilty  of  the  obvious  thing,  after  all.  But 


Light  fingers 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        127 

the  mistress  was  watching.  She  did  care 
for  her  servants  and  she  was  keenly  sensi 
tive  to  unusual  dangers  to  the  boy  through 
his  temperament;  and  so  she  began  to  set 
her  mind  to  the  treatment  of  a  weakness 
before  it  should  crystallize  into  character. 
Naturally,  her  first  essays  were  through 
moral  suasion.  By  every  art  she  knew,  she 
tried  to  induce  him  to  confess  his  fault.  It 
is  not  so  culpable  a  thing  to  see  ghosts  as  it 
is  to  steal  soap,  and,  as  confession  of  the 
lesser  failing  would  involve  the  smaller 
sacrifice  of  pride,  she  applied  her  zeal  to 
this,  but  accusation  or  even  suspicion  served 
only  to  emphasize  the  boy's  denials. 

Looking  straight  into  her  face,  he  would 
exclaim : 

"Cert'n'y  I  sees  sperits,  Missy!  I 
would  n't  dast  to  brag  about  ghos'es  I 
did  n't  see.  If  I  did,  dey  'd  ha'nt  me,  sho !" 
And  throwing  his  gaze  afar,  he  one  time 
added : 


128         The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

"Yas  'm,  I  sees  'em — an9  I  smells  9emy 
too!" 

This  was  carrying  the  thing  a  little  too 
far  and  the  mistress  laughed  outright. 

"Hush,  Levi!"  she  cried,  "don't  be 
ridiculous !  The  idea  of  smelling  spirits ! 
Whoever  put  such  an  idea  into  your  head?" 

At  this,  the  boy  came  a  step  nearer  to 
her  and  lowered  his  voice,  and  there  was 
that  in  his  earnestness  which  almost  carried 
conviction — of  his  sincerity,  at  least — as  he 
said : 

"Ever  sense  I  kilt  my  twin,  Missy,  I  been 
smellin'  sperits.  Yas  'm.  We  was  bofe 
babies,  layin'  on  mammy's  patchwork  on 
de  grass,  asleep  beside  mammy's  wash-tubs, 
an'  she  say  I  must  o'  been  ridin'  some  sort 
o'  nightmare  in  my  dream,  an'  'lowed  I  had 
my  foots  in  de  stirrup,  an'  I  kicked  my  twin 
in  de  belly — an'  kilt  'im,  daid — an'  dat  's 
huccome  I  smells  sperits,  special  when  I 
walks  barefeeted  in  wet  grass  in  clover-time 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        129 

in  de  dark  o'  de  moon.  Yas  'm,  I  sees  sperits, 
an'  I  sho  smells  'em,  too.  I  wusht  to  Gord 
I  did  n't." 

On  inquiry,  it  proved  to  be  only  too 
true  that  Levi's  twin  brother  had  come 
to  an  untimely  end  in  precisely  this  acci 
dent,  and  moreover,  shame  to  tell,  their 
half-savage  mother  had  brutally  taunted 
the  survivor  with  it.  Indeed,  it  had  been  her 
daily  habit,  in  the  free  use  of  the  rod  in  his 
strenuous  upbringing,  to  add  a  few  blows  in 
memory  of  this  far-away  crime. 

"An'  take  dis — an'  dis — an'  dis!"  she 
would  shriek,  "you  yo'ng  monster,  for  killin' 
yo'  little  angel  twin— an'  dis— AN9  DIS!" 
So,  beating  a  sort  of  crescendic  measure, 
would  she  finally  cool  her  ire. 

But  the  mother  had,  several  years  before 
this  telling,  gone  to  her  reward,  and  Levia 
than,  the  small,  the  uncanny,  the  persecuted, 
had  come  into  a  life  of  greater  freedom  and 
opportunity  at  the  great-house. 


130        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

His  aunt,  Charity  the  cook,  a  broad, 
humane,  tub-shaped  woman  of  maternal 
quality  and  practical  mind,  had  accepted 
the  charge  resignedly  upon  the  death  of  her 
sister  and,  providentially,  by  the  same 
bereavement  through  which  she  lamented 
that  Levi  had  "fallen  to  her  to  raise,"  the 
mistress  felt  that  he  had  also  "fallen  to  her" 
to  train. 

Thus  it  was  that  in  her  desire  to  establish 
personal  relations  with  the  child,  she  began 
early  to  make  a  small  allowance  to  him  for 
services  even  so  nominal  as  filling  the  cook's 
chip-basket  and  keeping  the  dogs  out  of  the 
kitchen  or,  rather,  constantly  driving  them 
out. 

That  her  care  did  not  extend  to  regula 
tion  of  his  toilet  was  partly  an  expression 
of  the  laxity  of  the  time  and  place  in  such 
matters,  and  partly  through  a  fine  sense 
of  the  pictorial  in  life.  There  was  scarcely 
a  week  when  her  kodak  did  not  hold  one  or 


Filling  the  cook's  chip-basket 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        133 

two  films  consecrate  to  Levi,  the  butler,  in 
some  novel  effect  of  a  fresh  combination. 
But  beyond  a  general  insistence  upon  clean 
liness  with  a  strict  rule  of  three-times-a-day 
for  the  roller-towel  and  the  Saturday  night 
tubbing,  she  preferred  not  to  go. 

She  hoped  to  instill  the  saving  principle 
that  here,  as  in  higher  life,  the  class-line 
might  almost  be  said  to  be  drawn  with  soap, 
and  that  the  small  butler  took  readily  to 
this  potent  factor  in  the  higher  civilization 
is  well  attested  in  his  weakness  for  high- 
class  soap.  So  is  sometimes  a  lofty  aim 
perverted. 

The  little  lady  of  the  manse,  a  dainty 
creature  who  appeared  to  take  life  easily 
and  not  to  wrinkle  her  fair  brow  with  vexed 
problems  of  conduct,  had  yet  evolved  a  few 
fundamental  principles  from  her  fluffy 
round  head  which  was  much  steadier  than 
some  of  its  piquant  coiffures  would  have  led 
one  to  suspect.  She  had  always  encouraged 


134        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

the  boy  to  save  his  wages.  She  made  him 
keep  clean  and  she  hoped  in  time  to  make 
him  honest.  She  would  have  preferred  to 
begin  with  honesty,  but  abstractions  may 
not  be  doled  out  as  rations. 

She  had  taught  him  a  little  catechism,  and 
as  he  had  twice  been  through  the  First 
Reader  in  the  plantation  school,  she  easily 
helped  him  to  memorize  certain  brief  por 
tions  of  scripture,  and  in  this,  he  proved 
unusually  apt. 

Much  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  he 
could  repeat  glibly  enough,  and  he  was  never 
so  happy  as  when  holding  forth  in  copious 
quotation,  to  any  chance  audience,  in  the 
stilted  preaching  voice  of  the  plantation. 
One  rounded  period  after  another  would  fall 
from  his  lips  so  that  many  of  the  other  plan 
tation  children  soon  had  much  of  it,  cor 
rupted  somewhat  in  transmission,  at  their 
tongue's  ends. 

As  illustrating  his  ready  wit,  on  one  occa- 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog         135 

sion  when  his  mistress  had  reproved  him 
for  lying,  the  little  fellow  set  his  face  quiz 
zically  while  he  replied: 

"No,  ma'am!  I  ain't  lyin'.  I  does  see 
ghos'es — an'  dat  ain't  all.  When  I  gits 
good  an'  pyore  in  heart,  I  looks  to  see 
Gord!  An'  I  got  scripture  for  it,  too !" 

What  could  she  say — she  who  had  taken 
such  delight  in  drumming  into  his  mind, 
"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they 
shall  see  God"? 

Instead  of  answering  in  kind,  she  thought 
best  to  look  at  her  watch  and  to  remark 
that  it  was  time  to  be  splitting  kindling  for 
the  evening  fires,  and  for  a  long  while  after 
this  she  found  herself  avoiding  the  subject, 
so  that  the  boy,  left  more  to  himself  and  his 
imagination,  gathered  fresh  zeal.  His  won 
der-tales  grew  in  color  and  in  fire  until  it 
seemed  important  that  something  should  be 
done,  and  soon,  for  the  child.  He  was 
manifestly  in  danger  of  becoming  either  a 


136         The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

confirmed  liar  or  a  defenseless  victim  to 
superstition,  it  was  hard  to  tell  which. 

While  she  was  casting  about  in  her  mind 
for  some  new  plan  of  treatment,  the  mis 
tress  happened  one  day  to  be  sitting  be 
hind  the  vines  at  her  window  when  she 
suddenly  discerned  Levi's  preaching  voice 
below  her  in  the  garden.  Rising,  she 
peeped  cautiously  down  to  discover  him 
mounted  upon  one  of  the  wrought-iron 
benches  in  the  honeysuckle  arbor  and  while 
about  a  dozen  piccaninnies  stood  wonder- 
struck  and  gaping  before  him,  he  gesticu 
lated  wildly  while  he  described  the  mysterious 
headless  man  who  came  and  went,  never 
leaving  any  footprints  in  his  path. 

"Right  onder  de  slim  yaller  half  moon 
he  stood,  an'  whilst  I  was  lookin',  Rover 
run  right  th'ough  'im — an'  de  cat,  she  run 
th'ough  'im — an'  dey  nuver  fazed  'im!  An' 
den  he  started  to  git  taller  an'  taller — an' 
taller — tel  he  was  high  as  dis!"  He  stood 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        137 

on  tiptoe,  and  at  this,  he  threw  up  his  hands, 
indicating  a  figure  almost  as  high  as  the 
house.  "An'  drekly  he  seen  me,  an'  he — " 

"How  could  he  see  you,  widout  eyes?" 
It  was  a  daring  voice  which  objected. 

"Ghos'es  don't  haf  to  have  eyes  —  or 
noses — or  nothin' !  Dey  jes  has  de  sperityal 
power!  Dey  leaves  dey  heads  in  de  graves 
so  's  to  know  whar  to  go  back  an'  lay  down 
ag'in.  An'  den  ag'in,  once-t  in  a  while, 
jes  de  heads  rises  out  o'  de  graves  an'  floats 
aroun'  in  de  dark,  same  as  a  jack-o'-lan 
tern.  But  I  don't  want  no  mo'  quizzifyin' 
talk.  I  like  to  know  who  's  noratin'  dis 
sermon,  me  or  you?" 

"You  is,  of  co'se,"  leniently  agreed  the 
objector.  "Go  ahead  an'  talk.  When  he 
bowed,  like  you  say,  wid  's  no-haid  shoul 
ders,  what  did  he  say?" 

"'What  did  he  say?'  Who  say  'say'? 
He  nuver  said  nothin' — jes  bowed  back  an' 
fo'th — an'  vanige  into  smoke.  Ef  he  'd  spoke, 


138        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

I  'd  look  to  die,  sho.  Bless  Gord,  de  no- 
haid  ghos'  ain't  nuver  spoke — not  'jit. 
Time  he  speaks,  I  '11  look  to  pass  on — an* 
perpare  for  jedgmint!" 

Here  was  an  idea. 

Preparation  for  judgment  means  contri 
tion — repentance — and  if  a  speaking  ghost 
could  bring  about  this  happy  issue — 

The  mistress  withdrew  from  the  window 
and,  dropping  in  an  attitude  of  meditation 
upon  her  canape,  she  drew  some  pillows  up 
against  her  body — then  rose  and  lit  several 
of  the  Japanese  punk-sticks  and  stuck  them 
in  a  vase  beside  the  couch — resumed  her 
place  among  the  pillows — drew  the  afghan 
up  over  her  slippers — threw  up  her  arms 
and  folded  them  beneath  her  head — and 
then  chuckled  at  her  own  deliberate  prepa 
ration  for  thought. 

"Somehow,  I  can  think  and  plan  better 
when  I  know  the  mosquito-sticks  are  smok 
ing,"  she  laughed.  "I  believe  there  's  some- 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog         139 

thing  in  the  queer  smell  of  the  things — a 
sort  of  inspirational  incense  odor." 

And  while  she  watched  the  narrow  eccen 
tric  columns  of  blue  as  they  threw  diaph 
anous  bow-knots  and  calla  lilies  into  the  air 
—  and  conch-shells  of  diminishing  spirals  — 
her  face  grew  pensive  and  then  suddenly  gay. 

"I  've  got  it !"  she  cried,  "I  've  got  it !  If 
a  speaking  ghost  is  the  medicine  he  needs 
—dear  me,  what  fun!  Archie  will  be  per 
fectly  delighted !" 

And  reaching  over,  she  hastened  to  touch 
the  silver  call-bell  upon  her  dressing-table. 

"Thank  you,  butler,"  she  said  playfully 
as  Levi  promptly  answered  the  summons. 
"Step  up-stairs,  please,  and  say  to  Mr. 
Archie  that  I  wish  to  see  him,"  and  as  the 
boy  disappeared,  she  called  after  him, 
"Right  away,  please,"  for  she  was  a  person 
of  swift  impulse. 

Archie,  her  nephew,  was  a  young  college 
fellow,  home  on  a  vacation  for  the  holidays, 


140        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

and,  as  she  anticipated,  he  was  only  too 
pleased  to  undertake  to  impersonate  Levi's 
ghost. 

By  connivance  of  a  ten-foot  "pope's 
head"  dust-brush,  a  small  green  lantern 
fixed  within  its  hair  and  no  end  of  gauzy 
windings,  there  stalked  in  the  garden  among 
the  shrubberies  that  same  night,  in  the  dark 
hour  before  moonrise,  such  a  spook  as  few 
of  us  would  care  to  meet  on  a  lonely  road. 

The  mistress  had  taken  the  older  servants 
into  her  confidence.  Marigold,  being  ad 
judged  unsafe,  was  sent  away  on  an  errand. 

The  man  of  the  house,  a  quiet,  acquies 
cent  sort  of  person,  who  cared  more  for  his 
old  library  than  for  the  cane  fields  which 
were  his  ostensible  first  interest,  had  been 
informed  of  the  plot  and  invited  out  to  wit 
ness  the  play. 

Taking  the  chair  set  for  him  in  the 
screenery  of  the  vines,  he  dropped  his  cigar 
and,  laying  his  hand  indulgently  over  his 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        141 

wife's  arm,  as  she  stood  beside  him,  he  said : 
"A  tempting  little  escapade,  this,  for 
a  fellow  with  two  years  of  college  life  behind 
him — but  be  careful,  Blessy,  dear,  that  you 
don't  let  him  scare  the  piccaninny  into  fits. 
The  hazing  spirit  can't  always  be  trusted 
for  moderation.  First-rate  idea,  though — 
first-rate.  'Similia  similibus  curantur*  you 
know.  I  always  told  you  you  'd  come  over 
to  homeopathy." 

At  this  moment  the  slim  figure  of  Levi 
darted  from  the  back  door  below,  in  the 
direction  of  the  cherokee  hedge,  and  even 
the  servants  who  had  collected  on  the 
kitchen  porch,  seeing  him,  ceased  their 
whispering. 

The  little  fellow  was  not  without  fear, 
as  his  swift  steps  indicated,  and  he  had  just 
begun  to  whistle  when  there  loomed  before 
him  the  great  stalking  grayness  which,  with 
a  noiseless  shift,  placed  itself  directly  in 
his  path. 


142         The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

The  apparition  was  very  close  to  him 
when  he  saw  it — and  fell  back. 

"Who  dat?"  he  gasped,  and  when  the 
words  were  out,  he  was  full  ten  feet  away 
and  trembling — but  he  did  not  turn. 

"Who  dat?"  he  repeated,  as  the  thing 
advanced,  moving  a  dim,  opalescent  head 
forward  and  back,  as  it  came. 

The  situation  needed  relief,  so  that  it 
was  well  when  Charity  scolded,  from  the 
gallery : 

"What  de  matter  wid  you,  Levi?  Why 
don't  you  run  along  an'  shet  dat  gate?" 

But  the  boy  was  fixedly  gazing  before 
him. 

"De  ghos' !  Aun'  Charity,  de  ghos' !"  His 
faint  voice  went  out  in  a  shriek. 

"Ghos'  nothin' !"  exclaimed  the  woman. 
Still,  when  she  said  it,  she  had  come  down 
and  stood  near  the  boy. 

"Whar  any  ghos'?  I  don't  see  no 
ghos' !"  she  kept  saying,  and  while  she  spoke 
she  swept  her  arm  forward,  actually  brush- 


De  ghos'  !  Aim'  Charity,  de  ghos 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        145 

ing  aside  the  folds  of  the  floating  draperies 
with  her  fingers. 

This  was  too  much  for  Levi.  It  was  the 
finishing  touch. 

"Don't  see  no  ghos'? — an'  you  techin' 
'is  skin?"  The  boy  dropped  to  his  knees 
now,  for  the  gruesome  thing  had  suddenly 
begun  to  speak. 

"I  come  after  young  liars !"  The  voice 
was  sepulchral  and  remote  as  if  made  by  a 
cold  wind  driven  between  bones. 

Levi  tumbled  completely  over  backward, 
but  recovered  himself,  standing  consider 
ably  farther  back.  But  his  fascinated 
gaze  did  not  leave  the  ghost,  and  as  it 
began  to  advance  again,  he  maintained  his 
distance,  backing  blindly. 

"A — young — liar.  A  young  LIAR,  I 
say !"  and,  with  a  low  dart  forward,  "I  say, 
is  this  a  young  liar?" 

"Y-y-y-yassir !"  stammered  the  boy. 

"Yas,  sir,  what?" 


146        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

"Y-y-y-y-yassir !  I  say  y-yassir!"  At 
each  word  Levi  courtesied  lower  and  lower, 
backing  as  he  could  until  the  spook  was 
so  near  that  he  would  have  taken  to  his 
heels  had  he  dared.  When  at  last  he  had 
backed  up  against  the  hedge  and  the  loom 
ing  illusion  towered  over  him,  he  seemed 
unable  to  speak,  and  only  his  constantly 
bowing  head  showed  him  conscious  of  terror. 

It  was  time  for  Charity  to  come  in  again, 
and  she  did  so  with  fine  skill,  saving  the 
poor  child  from  ultimate  disaster  without 
breaking  the  spell. 

"You  yo'ng  rascal!"  she  shrieked,  but 
he  felt  her  near  even  while  she  derided  him, 
"you  yo'ng  rascal,  what  you  doin', — workin' 
yo'  head  dat-a-way — standin'  out  in  de 
night!  Better  run  on  an'  shet  dat  gate, 
befo'  I  whup  you!" 

The  apparition  had  moved  a  pace  or  two 
away,  making  a  sort  of  circuit  of  the  boy, 
so  far  as  possible,  as  he  backed  against  the 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        147 

cherokee  hedge,  and,  as  it  turned,  Levi  fol 
lowed  it  with  pointing  finger. 

"De  ghos'— O  Lord,  de  ghos'!" 

And  now  there  came  a  chorus  of  pro 
tests  from  the  servant's  gallery — a  pre 
arranged  feature. 

"Whar  any  ghos'?" 

"Who  see  any  ghos'?" 

"Stop  yo'  lyin',  boy !" 

"—no  ghos'!" 

"Better  mek  dat  chile  behave  hisself, 
Charity." 

Things  move  fast  in  the  ghost  country, 
and  even  while  they  looked,  the  scoffers 
were  impressed  when  there  began  to  emerge 
from  the  dim  apex  of  the  THING  a  column 
of  smoke — thin  at  first  and  thrown  out  in 
spirals — then  more  dense,  with  an  occa 
sional  flash  and  a  faint  crackle  as  of  flames 
kindling — and  then — strong  but  insidious,  a 
smell  as  of  burning  sulphur — and,  last  of 
all,  words  again — lower,  deeper  than  ever: 


148        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

"A  tender  yo'ng  liar — to  broil  for  the 
devil's  supper.  The  coals  are  red—  A 
flicker  of  crimson  made  good  this  im 
pression,  "AND  THE  OLD  MAN  IS 
HUNGRY !  Do  I  see  a  tender  yo'ng  liar 
before  me?" 

"Y-y-y-yassir !"     With  a  deep  bow. 

"You  confess,  do  you?  You  are  a  young 
liar?" 

Another  bow — only. 

"And  are  you  going  to  QUIT?" 

Levi  turned  almost  inside  out  at  this,  so 
eager  was  his  assent. 

"One — more — chance!"  The  voice  was 
low  and  vibrant  and,  for  the  first  time, 
almost  human  in  a  note  of  relenting. 

The  THING  began  to  move  away,  but 
before  it  turned  into  the  thicket  it  turned 
once  more. 

"Going  to  quit,  are  you?  Then  salute 
your  master!" 

Down   on   the   ground  went   poor   Levi, 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        149 

his  forehead  in  the  dust,  and  when  he  raised 
himself,  there  was  no  one  there.  But  a 
dull  thud,  like  a  muffled  explosion  from  the 
thicket,  followed  by  several  flashes  of  colored 
light  and  a  burst  of  smoke,  held  him  spell 
bound  so  that  Charity  called  out,  from  the 
upper  porch,  now: 

"Run  along,  boy — an'  shet  dat  gate — 
an'  stop  yo'  foolishness." 

This  seemed  for  the  moment  to  bring  him 
to  himself.  Without  hesitation  he  ran  to 
the  end  of  the  lane,  closed  the  gate  as 
originally  directed,  and  in  a  moment  was 
back  again,  but,  instead  of  joining  his  com 
panions  in  the  kitchen,  he  hurried  to  the 
mistress,  and  without  ado  made  a  clean 
breast  of  his  fault. 

"I  done  quit  lyin',  Missy!"  he  said 
bravely,  short  of  breath  as  he  was  from  the 
ordeal  and  the  run ;  "I  come  to  tell  you." 

"Then  you  confess  you  have  lied — and 
you  have  never  seen  the  ghost?" 


150        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

"Not  no  no-haid  ghos',  no,  ma'am! 
Yas  'm,  I  is  lied  about  him — an'  I  ain't 
nuver  gwine  do  it  no  mo'  Missy,  befo'  Gord ! 
Nuver  is !"  He  came  a  little  nearer  now, 
and  dropped  his  voice  quite  down  to  the 
mystery  pitch. 

"But  I  sho  is  got  de  sperityal  sight, 
Missy,"  he  whispered,  "an'  I  is  seen  one 
reel — reel  ghos9  to-night!  Befo'  Gord,  I 
is!  Don't  keer  ef  Aur.'  Charity  do  whup 
me  for  it — I  sho  is  witnessed  de  visiom 
to-night — a  speakin'  sperit!  He  come  for 
me — an'  he  on'y  let  me  off,  caze  I  promised 
I  would  n't  nuver  tell  no  mo'  lies — "  He 
even  came  nearer  as  he  added  below  his 
breath : 

"An9 1  ain't,  Missy!     So  he9p  me!99 

And,  so  far  as  any  one  knows,  he  never 
broke  that  earnest,  breathless  promise. 

When  the  excitement  was  well  over  and 
the  negroes  had  dispersed,  the  man  of  the 
house  remarked,  as  he  lit  another  cigarj 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        151 

"Has  it  occurred  to  you,  Blessy,  that 
in  all  this  particularly  crucial  experience 
the  Liar  is  literally  the  only  person  who  has 
spoken  the  truth?  A  rather  interesting 
feature,  don't  you  think?" 

The  little  woman  laughed. 

"Yes,  you  'd  better  believe,  I  thought  of 
that!  And  I  wondered  if  you  would  no 
tice  it.  You  are  a  discerning  man,  dear. 
That  's  why  I  married  you.  I  mean,  that  's 
why  you  married  me.  But,  jesting  aside, 
as  to  our  not  speaking  the  truth  in  this 
instance,  remember,  we  were  working  in  the 
interest  of  truth,  all  the  same.  And  besides, 
for  myself,  I  suppose  it  is  infantile,  but  I 
did  save  myself,  technically,  by  declaring 
to  myself  that  I  really  did  n't  see  any  ghost 
— which  was  literally  true.  And  that  was  all  I 
ever  said  while  everybody  else  was  denying 
the  whole  thing,  needlessly — but,  anyway, 
dear — now,  don't  laugh  at  me,  but  really, 
you  know  it  was  medicine.  You  said  your- 


152        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

self,  it  was  a  case  in  homeopathy — and  all 
your  old  homeopathic  remedies  are  poison." 

"Bravely  argued  for  a  woman  of  your 
heft,  Blessy  !  I  accept  your  apology — and 
really,  I  hope  you  have  cured  your  patient. 
He  is  a  pathetic  little  scamp  and  he  was 
pitifully  scared." 

It  may  have  been  a  fortnight  after  this 
when  the  boy,  Levi,  was  hurrying  through 
the  house  one  evening  that  the  mistress 
called  him  to  her  side. 

"Come  here,  Leviathan,"  she  said,  "I 
have  something  to  say  to  you." 

His  full  name  thus  pronounced  was 
always  sufficient  guaranty  of  a  serious  situa 
tion,  and  yet,  so  determined  was  the  mis 
tress  to  impress  the  boy  that  she  looked 
keenly  into  his  shifting  eyes  as  she  repeated, 
very  slowly : 

" — something — very — serious.  And  don't 
try  to  answer  too  quickly.  Think  well 
before  you  speak. 


The  Hair  of  the  Dog        153 

"Do  you — know — anything  —  about  —  a 
little — cake — of  sweet  chocolate — which  I 
left — here — an  hour  ago?  Sh!  Slowly, 
now!  Where  is  it?" 

For  just  a  single  minute  the  eyes  of  the 
boy  traversed  space.  Then  they  sought 
hers  —  and  his  lip  trembled. 

With  a  pathetic  movement,  so  infantile 
as  to  invite  her  tears,  almost,  he  raised  his 
bird-like  hands  and  placed  one  over  the 
other,  upon  the  loose  waistcoat  which  cov 
ered  his  stomach,  and  from  the  dry  inef 
fectual  motion  of  his  lips,  she  knew  that 
the  word  which  he  vainly  summoned  was 
"Here !" 

He  was  only  a  little  child,  and  mother 
less.  The  playful  mistress  was  all  woman — 
and  childless.  Without  a  word  further,  she 
rose  and  noiselessly  closed  the  door — so  that 
she  might  talk  with  him,  differently.  It  was 
her  own  dainty  cambric  handkerchief  which 
wiped  his  tears  away  when  the  break  came; 


154        The  Hair  of  the  Dog 

and  when  he  "showed  up"  in  the  kitchen  a 
half  hour  later  he  looked  as  if  his  face  had 
been  freshly  washed,  and  the  cook  declared 
that  he  smelt  like  an  apothecary  shop, 
which  in  this  case  meant  that  the  wet  place 
on  his  checked  shirt-front  was  of  real  co 
logne  ;  and  while  he  was  dividing  a  big  cake 
of  sweet  chocolate  among  his  companions,  he 
declared  that  whenever  he  felt  the  need  of 
chocolate — or  cologne — or  anything — after 
this,  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  "walk  up  like  a 
man  and  ask  for  it." 

And  when  they  had  exclaimed  to  his 
satisfaction  he  added: 

" — an'  maybe  not  git  it.  But  a  man 
don't  mind  dat." 


THANKSGIVING  ON 
CRAWFISH  BAYOU 


THANKSGIVING  ON 
CRAWFISH  BAYOU 


CACIA  BAYOU,"  "Bayou  des 
Roses,"  "Mud  Bayou,"  "Crawfish 
Bayou,"  "Bayou  des  Crocodiles,"  "Ague 
Bayou" — such  were  some  of  the  pictorial 
names  which  distinguished  a  stream  so  nar 
row  in  some  of  its  many  turnings,  and  so 
shallow  in  all  but  a  few  remote  scare-holes 
of  supposed  danger,  that  Black  Jane's  little 
pickaninnies  played  prisoner's  base  and  last 
tag  on  both  sides  of  it  at  once,  stepping 
without  fear  or  diminished  speed  from  one 
bank  to  the  other. 

Jane,  whose  solitary  cabin  was  the  only 
human  habitation  realizable  in  its  vicinity, 

157 


158  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

had  herself  perhaps  as  many  names  as  the 
meager  stream  beside  which  she  was  rearing 
her  numerous  progeny. 

She  was  about  equally  well  known  as 
"Shouting  Jane,"  or  "Jane  Free,"  or  "Un- 
believin'  Jane,"  or  Jane  Randolph — the 
last  being  that  of  her  recent  owners — 
not  to  mention  several  others  which  it 
seems  hardly  fair  to  repeat  after  so  long 
a  time  when  she  may  not  put  in  her  defense. 

Most  of  these  appellations  are  so  freely 
descriptive  as  to  need  no  explanation,  and 
if  there  seems  to  be  some  incongruity 
among  them,  as,  for  instance,  between  "un 
believing"  and  "shouting"  as  applied  to  the 
same  woman,  it  is  only  because  of  a  limited 
knowledge  of  the  woman  and  the  circum 
stances. 

Jane  was  typical  of  a  somewhat  excep 
tional  class,  being  the  daughter  of  a  Congo 
negress,  Mano  by  name,  who  had  been  a 
princess  in  her  own  country,  and  who  had 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  159 

brought  into  her  slave  life  the  strong  tradi 
tions  of  her  caste. 

From  the  infancy  of  her  American-born 
daughter  she  had  instilled  into  her  a  resent 
ment  of  slavery,  and  even  before  there  was 
any  hint  of  the  war,  or  of  possible  emanci 
pation,  she  had  had  the  unprecedented 
temerity  to  name  her  child  Jane  Free. 

Although  she  had  acquired  her  Congo- 
English  in  terms  of  Christianity  and  hope, 
Mano  remained  at  her  heart  an  African 
and  a  pagan.  She  called  herself  in  her 
own  tongue  by  the  word  that  meant  a  cap 
tive,  never  a  slave.  The  Christian's  God 
was  the  God  of  the  white  man.  He  did 
not  know  her,  or,  if  He  did,  He  was  not  a 
God  of  love  or  even  of  justice.  Or,  if  this 
were  not  so,  then  He  was  impotent  and  no 
God  at  all. 

As  she  was  of  necessity  a  woman  of  rela 
tions  and  clung  to  her  kind,  it  became 
Mano's  life  habit  to  follow  the  throng  to 


1 60  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

worship,  but  she  had  ever  sat  among  her 
people  as  one  apart — sullen  and  protest 
ing. 

Her  one  concession  to  the  religion  of  her 
environment  was  the  baptism  of  her  child, 
Jane,  but  those  who  knew  her  best  said  that 
she  had  done  so  merely  for  the  bravado  of 
having  the  name  called  out  before  the  con 
gregation,  "Jane  Free."  Of  course,  in  the 
circumstance,  such  an  act  was  almost  crim 
inal  in  its  suggestion,  but  when  arraigned 
for  it,  Mano's  urbane  and  clever  defense  was 
"I  named  my  chile  Jane  Free  jes  caze  I 
tooken  a  notion  to  de  name.  She  name  Jane 
Free-Randolph,  an'  ef  de  Randolphs  ain't 
free,  I  lak  to  know  who  is." 

This  was  a  stroke  of  genius — this  quick 
vocal  hyphenation  of  the  name  by  which 
she  thrust  the  offensive  word  forward — 
for  this  one  time  only — into  a  connection 
which  transformed  it  into  a  compliment  to 
her  master's  people. 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  161 

In  giving  her  child  the  name  of  Randolph 
she  was  merely  endowing  her  maternally, 
for  she  had  herself  always  been  called  Mano 
Randolph,  and  preferred  to  perpetuate  this 
connection  to  damning  her  offspring  with 
the  doubtful  surname  of  an  incidental,  no- 
account  father-at-large. 

It  would  seem  from  this,  as  well  as  from 
several  other  idiosyncracies,  that  the  proud 
Congo  woman,  Mano,  had  some  of  the 
foibles  occasionally  exhibited  by  others  of 
royal  blood. 

Such  had  been  the  mother  of  shouting, 
unbelieving  Jane  Free,  of  Bayou  Crapaud. 
This,  by  the  way,  was  another  of  the 
bayou's  names,  one  or  another  of  which  was 
always  peculiarly  fitting,  according  to  the 
season  or  the  speaker's  mood. 

Jane  had  grown  up  about  her  mother's 
skirts,  and  she  had  been  taught  to  think  a 
good  deal  of  her  middle  name.  She  believed 
that  it  wa&  retrospectively  far-reaching  and 


1 62  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

honorable,  but  that  it  might  have  any  pros 
pective  suggestion  was  as  far  from  her  mind 
as  it  had  been  from  her  mother's,  until 
the  sudden  turn  of  events  which  reversed  the 
vista  for  her,  making  her  in  fact  a  free 
woman  in  1863. 

At  that  time,  Jane  was  a  young  mother 
with  three  children  of  as  many  distinct  com 
plexions,  all  answering  to  the  proud  old 
name  of  Randolph,  with  exactly  as  little 
and  as  much  right  to  the  same  as  their 
mother. 

With  such  antecedents,  and  reared  in  such 
a  setting,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Jane  had 
grown  up  charged  to  the  danger  point  with 
the  spirit  of  revolt.  Her  mother,  naturally 
endowed  as  a  woman  of  faculty,  had  worked 
hard  chiefly  because  she  did  not  want  any 
one  to  bid  her  work.  A  princess  might 
please  to  labor  with  her  hands,  but  she 
could  not  consistently  take  orders. 

Jane,  as  is  sometimes  the  case  with  the 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  1 63 

children  of  great-spirited  women,  inherited 
her  mother's  fire  without  her  faculty.  She, 
too,  wielded  the  hoe  or  bent  over  her  tubs-  to 
evade  the  command,  but  her  thinner  wrists 
worked  with  lesser  skill,  and  a  slighter 
mentality  held  the  curb  of  her  dangerous 
spirit. 

She  had  kept  true  to  her  mother's  re 
ligious  teachings,  or,  rather,  to  her  irrelig 
ious  attitude,  and  although  she  had  grown 
up  in  the  atmosphere  of  an  emotional  Chris 
tianity  which  seemed  to  answer  all  the  tragic 
needs  of  her  race;  although  she  had  been 
many  times  prayed  over,  and  exhorted  with 
tears  and  oratory  to  come  into  the  fold, 
and  her  own  wild  nature  had  been  more 
than  once  on  the  point  of  ignition,  she  had 
never,  up  to  the  time  of  the  Emancipation, 
made  any  response.  She  had  not  even  been 
enrolled  as  a  "seeker,"  and  when  dragged 
to  the  mourners'  bench  by  those  who  yearned 
for  her  soul's  salvation,  she  had  always 


1 64  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

risen  as  she  had  knelt,  a  cold,  resisting, 
free-born  slave  woman — rebellious  and  "sin 
ful." 

On  a  certain  memorable  day,  however — 
a  day  which  she  would  never  forget — when 
the  gong  sounded  at  eleven  in  the  morning 
instead  of  at  noon,  and  all  the  negroes  knew 
it  to  be  freedom's  signal,  and  many  at  the 
first  sound  fell  upon  their  knees,  Jane,  sit 
ting  in  their  midst,  suddenly  sprang  to  her 
feet— she  had  not  believed  that  the  bell 
would  ring  until  she  heard  it — and  seizing 
one  after  another  of  her  little  children,  she 
lifted  them  as  high  as  she  could  reach  to 
ward  heaven  and,  with  streaming  eyes, 
shouted  "Glory !"  and  "Freedom !"  until  she 
was  hoarse. 

When  she  had  set  the  children  down,  she 
sprang  upon  a  hencoop,  leapt  with  a  bound 
to  the  top  of  an  inverted  sugar-cask,  and 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  held  her  audience 
spellbound.  God  had  heard  the  prayers  of 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  165 

her  people — the  prayers  of  those  who  had 
prayed  and  the  dumb  heart-throbs  of  such 
as  had  refused  to  pray.  Here,  at  last,  was 
an  answer  to  the  protest  of  her  mother's 
life,  and  she,  her  daughter,  had  been  slow 
and  impatient  and  had  not  known  how  to 
believe  and  to  wait.  So  she  accused  her 
self.  This  was  surely  conversion. 

It  was  a  dramatic  performance  through 
out,  and  many  of  the  old  Christians,  seeing 
Jane  finally  rejoicing,  apparently  in  faith, 
a  saved  soul,  began  to  shout  with  her,  and 
"Freedom  Day"  on  Bois  d'Arc  Plantation 
was  virtually  converted  into  a  religious  re 
vival  through  the  inspiring  leadership  of 
"Unbelieving  Jane." 

Many  of  those  who  had  knelt  had  burst 
into  tears  at  the  first  signal,  a  few,  as  she, 
overcome  with  a  realization  of  its  portentous 
meaning,  and  others  trembling  in  fear  and 
dread,  like  little  children  deserted  in  an  un 
known  wilderness. 

10 


166  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

Many  were  hopeful,  some  even  jubilant, 
but  Jane  alone  of  all  the  heart-stirred 
throng  was  absolutely  sure  as  to  her  future 
—her  mother,  unfortunately,  had  died  be 
fore  the  Great  Day — and  when  a  few  weeks 
later  she  gathered  her  little  ones  together 
and  started  out  into  the  world,  freely  fol 
lowing  her  caprice  alone,  she  vaguely  felt 
that  it  was  only  a  question  of  time  when  she 
should  come  into  her  own,  which  is  to  say 
into  a  prestige  befitting  her  traditional  sta 
tion  in  the  new  social  order  of  her  freed 
people. 

She  was  not  entirely  certain,  but  she  felt 
tolerably  sure  that  she  and  her  friends 
would  soon  have  white  servants,  not  that 
she  cared  about  this  particularly,  but  if  all 
of  her  color  were  to  be  promoted,  others 
would  have  to  serve,  of  course.  And  turn 
about  was  only  fair  play.  Many  of  the 
negroes  believed  this  at  the  time  of  the 
emancipation. 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  1 67 

If  it  were  true,  so  far  as  she  was  con 
cerned,  Jane's  chief  regret  in  leaving  home 
now  was  the  chance  of  missing  the  triumph 
of  being  waited  upon  by  a  certain  vexatious 
old  lady,  a  dependent  relative  of  her  mas 
ter's  family,  who  had  been  exacting  of  her 
in  her  youth.  If  she  could  just  live  to  have 
this  troublesome  side-curled  lady,  Miss 
Melanie  Montgomery,  hand  her,  Jane  Free, 
a  cup  of  tea  on  a  tray,  presenting  it  with 
the  traditional  dipping  courtesy  of  the  slave 
—well,  it  would  have  done  her  good.  She 
did  n't  care  especially  about  this,  and  yet 
she  cared  enough  to  think  out  the  picture 
and  to  smile  over  it. 

Of  course,  Jane's  remote  objective  point 
was  the  city  of  the  White  House — the 
Mecca  of  the  gilded  dome — even  though  she 
could  aspire  to  reach  it  only  by  slow  stages, 
but  there  were  several  well-known  and  ac 
cessible  sub-stations  en  route  for  the  dis 
bursement  of  favors. 


1 68  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

On  the  day  when,  holding  one  babe  in  her 
arms  and  with  a  toddler  clinging  to  her  skirts 
on  either  side,  she  made  known  her  wants 
at  the  military  headquarters  in  New  Or 
leans,  expecting,  she  scarcely  knew  what, 
as  an  initial  favor,  it  had  never  occurred  to 
her  to  doubt  that  the  paternal  decree  which 
had  made  her  free,  the  heaven-inspired  proc 
lamation  of  "Father  Abraham,"  would  in 
sure  her  welcome  as  a  daughter  in  Israel. 
She  and  those  of  her  household  would  soon 
be  invited  to  walk  in  and  enjoy  one  of  the 
many  mansions  in  her  Father's  house — the 
mansions  in  contemplation  of  which  she  had 
so  often  heard  her  people  shout. 

Such  was  the  confusion  of  her  mind — 
such  the  composite  picture  made  up  of  frag 
mentary  precepts  gathered  from  religious 
and  political  teachers  —  fragments  which  had 
fallen  upon  the  sensitive  plate  of  her  sus 
ceptible  and  irrational  mind  in  its  most  im 
pressible  period  and  which  had  lain  dor- 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  1 69 

mant  in  her  subconsciousness  until  touched 
into  life  by  the  strong  currents  of  an  over 
charged  atmosphere. 

Never  was  happier  coincidence  than  that 
which  gave  to  the  savior  of  a  superstitious 
and  worshipful  people  the  name  of  Judah's 
patriarch,  Abraham — Abraham,  who  had 
held  an  honored  place  in  the  salvation 
scheme  of  an  oppressed  and  waiting  people 
through  all  the  ages.  Imagine  Lincoln  with 
a  name  like  Frank  or  Harold  or  Mortimer, 
or  Chauncey ! 

One  who  knows  the  reverence  of  the 
African's  mind,  his  sensitiveness  to  romance, 
to  poetry,  to  association  and  to  worship, 
can  realize  that  in  his  apotheosis  of  "Father 
Abraham"  he  was  not  only  honoring  the  re 
deemer  of  his  race  but  fulfilling  the  law 
and  the  prophets. 

Of  course,  there  could  be  nothing  but  dis 
appointment  and  chagrin  for  such  as  poor 
Jane  Free,  and  in  the  press  and  the  stress 


170  Thanksgiving  on  Craw  fish  Bayou 

and  the  rush  and  the  crush  of  the  thousands 
who  had  come  as  she,  the  only  privilege  she 
enjoyed  as  a  "daughter  of  the  kingdom"  — 
which  is  to  say,  the  republic — was  that  of 
standing  in  line  with  the  pitiful  row  of  "con 
traband"  negroes  who  drew  their  daily 
rations  from  a  government  which  for  the 
time  was  only  thus  far  even  thus  meagerly 
and  impersonally  paternal. 

Jane  had  always  been  a  law  unto  her 
self,  free  by  name  and  nature,  wilful  and 
loving  by  turns,  but  through  all  more  con 
stantly  maternal  than  anything  else.  Her 
family  grew  as  it  had  begun.  When  there 
were  six,  several  years  after  the  war,  in 
cidentally  two  were  of  the  same  blood. 
They  were  twins. 

But  whether  her  ducklings  were  ugly  or 
whether  they  developed  into  swans,  they 
were  her  own,  flesh  of  her  flesh,  and  as  one- 
parent  children  sometimes  are  to  the  mothers 
who  dare  admit  them  at  all  into  the  citadel 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  171 

of  love,  they  were  dearer  than  life  or  heaven 
to  Jane's  poor  infidel  heart. 

Of  course,  she  had  long  since  repudi 
ated  her  one  act  of  allegiance  to  the  Chris 
tian  God,  as  soon,  as  she  rather  shockingly 
put  it,  as  she  had  discovered  that  He  had 
fooled  her — fooled  her  and  made  her  make 
a  show  of  herself  on  Freedom  Day — called 
her  out  by  a  false  proclamation  away  from 
home  and  friends  and  protection,  telling  her 
that  she  was  free  and  then  turning  Tier  loose. 

Yes,  God  had  fooled  her.  In  the  old 
days  she  had  been  called  a  slave,  but  the 
gifts  of  life  had  come  free.  Now  she  was 
written  down  free,  and  the  great  and  grow 
ing  responsibilities  of  her  new  condition  en 
slaved  her  hopelessly.  The  number  of  her 
children  or  their  needs,  even  their  ailments, 
these  had  been  the  master's  care  in  the  old 
free  slave  days. 

There  was  suffering,  and,  sad  to  say,  there 
was  sometimes  even  want  in  the  poor  cabin 


1 72  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

on  the  tattered  edge  of  the  raggedest  suburb 
of  the  swamp-encircled  town  to  which  she 
had  been  lured  by  false  promises  to  enjoy 
her  enslaved  freedom.  Yes,  surely  God  had 
fooled  her. 

Of  course  there  were  times  when  she  had 
had  temporary  assistance  from  one  or  an 
other  during  the  glamour  periods  of  her 
several  romances,  but  taking  even  these  in 
the  aggregate,  they  had  been  decidedly  more 
of  a  tax  than  otherwise. 

But  Jane  was  no  more  an  idler  than  she 
had  been  in  the  old  slave  times.  She  had 
always  been  a  healthy  woman,  albeit  she  was 
so  slender — she  looked  as  if  a  sudden  breeze 
might  waft  her  away.  But  her  affiliations 
were  mainly  earthward,  and  from  the  absurd 
little  topknot,  composed  chiefly  of  calico 
strings,which  decked  her  proud  little  head, 
to  the  sole  of  her  nimble  foot — a  sole  whose 
hollow  literally  "made  a  hole  in  the  ground" 
— Jane  was  thoroughly  alert.  Indeed,  it  was 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  173 

her  boast  that  when  she  was  well,  all  she 
asked  was  "a  row  o'  tubs,  a  good  bleachin'- 
plot  o'  grass,  a  strong  clo'es-line,  an'  a 
good-lookin'  man  to  stari*  Alongside  de  tubs, 
and  she  would  n't  ax  nobody  no  odds." 
When  the  spur  of  romance  failed,  she  fell 
back  upon  her  temper  as  a  propelling  power. 

Jane  had  had  more  than  one  chance  to 
marry,  even  in  these  latter  days  and  in  the 
face  of  the  four,  or  the  five,  and  even  of  the 
six  toddling  detractors  of  her  eligibility,  but 
her  love  of  freedom  was  too  all-embracing  to 
allow  her  to  consider  such  a  thing. 

It  is  possible  that  in  a  weak  moment  she 
might  have  consented  to  commit  herself  to 
life-companionship  with  some  particular 
man  but  for  what  she  was  pleased  to  call 
"mortgaging"  her  children,  which  she  had 
more  than  once  declared  she  would  never  do. 
Indeed,  on  one  memorable  occasion,  seeing  a 
companion  wrangling  with  an  ex-husband 
over  the  disputed  custody  of  a  child,  Jane 


1 74  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

was  heard  to  exclaim:  "What  I  tol'  yer? 
Ain't  I  warned  yer  ag'in'  marryin'?  I  tell 
yer,  sister,  I  would  n't  marry  no  man  alive. 
No,  honey.  My  chillen  is  mine!  Dey  ain't 
no  man  dat  dast  lay  a  han'  on  one  o*  'em! 
Yas,  Lord,  an'  I  gwine  stay  a  ole  maid  an' 
tek  keer  o'  my  chillen."  And  take  care  of 
them  she  did,  as  well  as  she  knew  how. 

For  the  first  few  years  of  her  experi 
mental  freedom  she  made  a  fair  living,  tak 
ing  it  all  around,  and  allowing  for  the  times 
when  she  had  to  lie  by  when  ration-days 
were  resumed,  and  not  laying  too  much 
stress  upon  the  few  hungry  periods  which 
were  really  some  customer's  fault  for  not 
paying  promptly,  or  for  being  altogether 
too  particular  and  withdrawing  his  patron 
age. 

Jane's  mother  had  been  a  great  beauty 
in  her  day,  black,  polished,  erect  and  com 
manding,  but  Jane,  who  seemed  an  expres 
sion  of  a  single  impulse  rather  than  a  repro- 


Thanksgiving  on  Craw  fish  Bayou  175 

duction  of  the  woman  in  her  integrity,  had 
never  been  even  a  pretty  woman,  exactly. 
But  she  was  better  than  pretty  in  her  un 
failing  picturesqueness,  and  she  bore  herself 
with  so  piquant  an  air  that  no  man  of  her  class 
who  ever  saw  her  failed  to  look  at  her  twice, 
and  to  such  as  came  at  all  under  the  spell  of 
her  volatile  and  magnetic  personality  she 
was  charming  to  a  dangerous  degree. 

No  mocking-bird  that  ever  tilted  on  a 
bough  above  her  head  and  sang  his  freedom- 
song  was  more  lithe  and  graceful  than  little 
black  Jane  Free,  none  more  sweet-voiced 
than  she  when  she  essayed  to  answer  him 
with  her  own. 

She  often  sang  at  her  tubs. — sang  out 
whatever  was  in  her  heart,  just  letting  it 
come  as  it  would  in  a  sort  of  lawless  vi 
bratory  fashion,  crooning  or  shouting 
according  to  her  mood,  and  sometimes 
scarcely  audibly  intoning  her  self-commun- 
ings  in  a  voice  so  low  that  when  the  wind 


176  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

was  blowing  one  would  scarcely  have  known 
whether  it  were  she  or  the  stirring  of  the 
leaves  but  for  the  rhythm  which  marked 
every  movement  of  her  sinewy  body. 

Indeed,  when  she  willed  it,  Jane  was  a 
sort  of  wanton  mocking-bird  herself,  and  in 
her  love-making  periods,  when  it  was  her 
pleasure  to  give  herself  full  expression,  she 
often  mockingly  sang  the  religious  hymns  of 
her  people,  throwing  her  slim  body  with 
maddening  abandon,  shamming  ecstasy  or 
despair  for  the  delectation  of  her  adorer. 
One  of  her  most  telling  performances  of  this 
sort  was  her  rendering  of  the  popular 
washerwoman's  hymn  of  the  plantation  while 
she  wrung  out  her  clothes  or  stood  atiptoe 
hanging  them  on  the  line. 

"  Gord  walked  in  de  gyarden  in  de  cool  o'  de  day." 

Strongly  rhythmic,  it  lent  itself  equally  to 
the  wash-board's  measure  or  to  simple  emo 
tional  expression.  It  was  the  song  with 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  177 

which  she  frequently  began  her  work — about 
mid-morning  of  a  summer's  Monday,  the 
early  hours  being  employed  in  collecting 
her  bundles  and  getting  ready. 

Somehow,  it  seemed  to  have  working-force 
in  its  measure  while  the  pictorial  first  line 
was  tranquilizing  and  pleasant. 

So,  with  the  first  rub,  she  would  start  in : 

"Gord  walked  in  de  gyarden  in  de  cool  o'  de  day  — 

Oh,  Lord,  whar  kin  dat  gyarden  be  ? 
I  'd  turn  my  weary  foots  dat  way 
An'  pray  Thee  cool  de  day  for  me  !  " 

And  here,  if  the  day  were  particularly 
warm,  she  would  stop  and  mop  off  her  face 
while  she  cried : 

"  Yas,  Lord,  cool  de  day,  sho'!  " 

when,  nothing  daunted,  she  would  take  up 
the  measure  and  go  along  with  the  refrain : 

"Lord,  Lord,  walkin'  in  de  gyarden  — 

Open  de  gate  to  me  ! 
I  'd  nuver  be  afeard  o'  de  flamin*  sword 
Ef  I  could  walk  wi'  Thee  ! 


178  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

"  Gord  walked  in  de  gyarden  in  de  cool  o'  de  day  — 

He  sa'ntered  'mongs'  de  shrubbery, 
He  nuver  turned  aroun'  to  look  dat  way, 
I  wush  't  He  'd  watched  dat  apple-tree ! 

Lord,  Lord,  walkin'  in  de  gyarden  — 

Ev-'ry-body  knows 
Dat  sins  begins  wid  needles  an'  pins 
An'  de  scan'lous  need  o'  clo'es  ! 

"  Gord  walked  in  de  gyarden  in  de  cool  o'  de  day  — 

My  bleachin'-plot  ain't  fitt'n'  for  Thee, 
But  dat  Bible  gyarden  's  so  far  away, 
So,  Lord,  come  bless  my  fiel'  for  me ! 

Lord,  Lord,  come  into  my  gyarden, 

Ev-'ry-body  knows 

How  Eve's  mistake  when  she  listened  to  de  snake 
Still  keeps  me  washin'  clo'es  ! 

**  Gord  walked  in  de  gyarden  in  de  cool  o'  de  day  — 

Ef  I  could  stand  an'  see  Him  pass 
Wid  de  eye  o'  faith,  as  de  Scripture  saith, 
I  'd  shout  heah  on  my  bleachin'-grass  ! 
Lord,  Lord,  my  little  gyarden 

Ain't  no  place  for  Thee, 
But  come  an'  shine  wid  a  light  divine 
An'  fix  my  faith  for  me  ! 

**  Glo-ry,  glory,  hallelujah  ! 
Peter,  James  an'  John  ! 
Behol'  de  light  an'  de  raiment  white  ! 
Yo'  visiom  's  passin'  on  !  " 

As  she  approached  the  climax,  the  note 
of  mockery  in  her  voice  would  die  out,  and 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  179 

at  the  last,  the  "Glory !"  stanza,  which  gen 
erally  found  her  out  in  the  clearing,  where, 
with  arms  upraised,  she  would  lift  her  face 
to  the  sky,  her  rapt  expression,  as  she 
shouted,  "Behol'  de  light  an'  de  raiment 
white!"  would  have  deceived  even  the  elect 
themselves. 

And,  sometimes,  she  would  even  gain  a 
new  effect  by  repetition  of  this  last  refrain 
in  a  tremulous  lower  pitch  when,  falling 
upon  the  ground,  as  if  dazed  by  the  hea 
venly  vision,  she  would  feign  unconscious 
ness,  lying  as  one  dead. 

Only  this  last,  however,  when  a  devoted 
admirer  happened  to  be  at  hand  to  come  and 
lift  her.  Once,  lying  thus  upon  the  grass, 
she  began  suddenly  to  chuckle : 

"Lord,  I  sho  is  one  devil — I  sho  is!  I 
wonder  what  I  'd  do,  ef  I  was  to  view  a 
heavenly  visiom,  sho  'nough!  Come,  pick 
me  up,  man — an'  lemme  git  dem  earthly 
raiments  good  an'  white!"  And,  with  va- 


180  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

grant    arms    loosely    about   her    waist,    she 
sauntered  back  to  the  tubs. 

And  then,  there  was  the  telling  hymn: 
"Oh,  my  soul,  you  mus'  be  walkin'  in  yo' 
sleep!"  which  she  loved  to  sing — a  religious 
hymn  to  which  she  recklessly  added  pagan 
lines  of  her  own  making.  Also,  for  co 
quetry,  and  on  occasions  when  the  same 
would  not  be  wasted,  she  irresistibly  sang 
the  quaint  barn-yard  j  ingle : 

"Oh,  Sister  Goose  is  gray 

An'  Mister  Gander  's  white, 
Jes  so  his  wife,  dey  say, 
Can  find  'ira,  day  or  night, 
For  many  a  gander 
Is  prone  to  wander 
An'  scarcely  one  dat  don't  meander  !  " 

And  then  she  would  add,  with  a  toss  of  her 
little  high  head : 

"Better  come  on  heah,  Brer  Gander,  an' 
meander  wid  me  whilst  I  empty  dis  heavy 
tub !"  And  the  honored  guest,  taken  in  the 
height  of  a  glamour  season,  would  spring 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  181 

to  his  feet  and  lend  a  hand,  even  holding  his 
fraction  of  a  hat  in  his  hand,  with  the  easy 
grace  of  a  knight  of  old. 

But  there  were  many  days  when  only 
semi-articulate  crooning  at  the  tubs  fitted 
into  nature's  small  noises  of  mating  things, 
falling  in  with  the  droning  of  bees  and  the 
vibrant  soughing  of  the  trees  above — the 
soughing  of  stalwart  limbs,  heavy  with 
sweets  of  flower  which  sometimes  sent  a  dam 
aging  shower  of  yellow  pollen  over  a  white 
garment,  lifted  for  inspection.  But  even 
the  washer's  staccato  protests  and  the  swish 
of  the  suds  as  she  dipped  it  again,  failed  of 
discord  as  they  fell  in  with  the  harsh  Locust- 
notes — the  jarring  notes  which  do  not  jar  to 
him  whose  ears  are  attuned  to  nature's  whole 
choir. 

Perhaps  it  was  thus  that  Jane  found  her 
standard  of  morality — her  code,  if  you  will. 
Jane  was  precisely  as  moral  as  the  corn 
stalk  which  nodded  approval  to  her,  over  the 

11 


1 82  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

rail  fence — the  corn-stalk,  planted  willy- 
nilly  in  God's  ground — feet  in  earth — 
blessed  by  the  sun  and  caressed  by  the  dew 
—the  heaven-seeking  stalk,  fashioned  for 
praise  rather  than  prayer — the  stalk  whose 
whole  creed  is  beneficent  compliance — the 
stalk  which,  warm  with  the  life-fluid,  and 
true  to  nature's  traditions,  lightly  invites  a 
golden  grain  to  place  of  equal  honor  in  its 
rows  of  white  and  knows  not  the  meaning 
of  shame.  Or  of  sin ! 

She  was  exactly  as  moral  as  the  cante- 
loupe  vine  from  which  she  cut  the  too- 
smooth  melons  for  her  variously  colored 
children — the  canteloupe  which,  she  ex 
plained,  was  "too  yaller  becaze  it  made  too 
free  wid  de  punkin-vines." 

She  was  as  moral,  quite,  as  the  roses, 
perhaps  —  and  thought  about  it  as  little  as 
they. 

When  she  finally  took  her  brood  out  to 
the  old  deserted  cabin  on  Crawfish  Bayou, 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  183 

Jane  must  have  realized  that  she  was  pass 
ing  beyond  the  boundary  of  possible  success, 
but  there  was  no  alternative.  Her  rent  had 
long  been  unpaid  where  she  was,  and  to  have 
her  poor  belongings  sold  by  the  sheriff 
would  have  meant  immediate  disaster. 

There  would  have  been  no  use  repining 
over  the  inevitable,  anyway,  but  it  was  a 
singing-time  with  Jane,  and  not  even  threat 
ened  calamity  had  power  to  depress  her 
while  a  certain  stalwart  yellow  Adonis,  an 
swering  to  the  proud  name  of  Henry  Clay, 
was  wearing  out  his  elbows  on  her  wash- 
bench. 

Henry  really  helped  with  the  moving — 
which  is  to  say,  he  took  Jane's  youngest  two 
and  held  them  beside  him  on  the  front  seat 
of  the  wagon  heaped  with  her  things — it  is 
hardly  fair  to  refer  to  them  as  furniture — 
while  Jane  and  the  older  children  followed 
afoot. 

Henry  was  a  gentle-voiced  fellow,  some- 


1 84  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

what  younger  than  Jane,  with  no  energy  to 
speak  of  beyond  that  employed  in  devotion, 
and  with  so  slight  a  sense  of  humor  that 
when  he  had  stood  beside  her  tubs  for 
scarcely  a  fortnight  he  blandly  and  without 
a  smile  began  to  answer  to  the  endearing 
and  interpretative  title  of  "daddy"  to  Jane's 
entire  brood,  with  whom  his  quickly  winning 
personality  had  made  him  an  instant  fa 
vorite. 

There  would  be  no  rent  to  pay  in  this 
last  retreat.  Indeed,  there  was  not  so  much 
as  a  landlord  in  evidence,  and  the  dilapi 
dated  roof  which  by  and  by  Jane  repaired 
with  her  own  hands  had  long  ago  been  given 
over  to  Nature.  Nor  had  Nature  been  for 
getful  of  her  invitation.  Upon  the  soft  gray 
of  the  time-stained  roof  she  had  set  beautiful 
tufts  of  polypodium,  which  sparkled  like 
emerald  against  and  through  the  festoons  of 
Spanish  moss  which  depended  from  a  dying 
oak  whose  gaunt  arms,  first  raised  as  in 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  185 

benediction,  had  come  to  typify  mortality. 

Upon  the  shanty's  inner  walls  were  rich 
draperies  of  brocade  in  molds  of  red  and 
yellow  and  green,  and  even  purple,  and  be 
neath  its  drooping  eaves  were  wrens'  nests, 
and  the  snug  adobe  buildings  of  the  mud- 
dauber  wasp,  and  pendent  brown  paper 
homes  of  the  yellow  hornet.  A  few  craw 
fish  chimneys  reared  their  tops  in  one  corner 
of  the  hut  where  the  plank  floor  had  rotted 
away,  but  without  the  door,  even  crowding 
to  its  very  threshold,  there  were  clusters  of 
little  palms — palmettos — even  more  bris 
tling  and  alert  than  those  which  are  seen 
worshiping  in  metropolitan  cathedrals. 

It  was  late  in  August  when  Jane  took  pos 
session,  and  the  south  end  of  the  hut  was  a 
solid  mass  of  overlapping  greenery  from 
which  the  delighted  children  immediately  be 
gan  to  gather  drinking-gourds  with  eccen 
tric  handles,  which  their  "daddy"  showed 
them  how  to  cut  and  to  polish  for  use. 


186  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

It  was  a  picture  of  luxuriance  and 
bounty,  but  when  Jane  first  stood  within  the 
door  and,  resting  her  thin  hands  upon  the 
sills,  looked  around  her,  she  saw  only  bar 
renness  and  want. 

The  bayou,  rank  with  summer  growths, 
flowed  sluggishly  before  the  door.  This  im 
mediately  became  the  family  market-place, 
and  here  any  morning  a  row  of  little  picka 
ninnies  might  have  beeji  seen  fishing  for 
crawfish  with  twine  string  and  scoop-net. 
At  first  the  bait  question  seemed  a  difficulty, 
but  it  was  soon  found  that  fishing  with  bits 
of  fresh  beef  for  even  so  long  as  half  a  day, 
when  the  weather  was  not  too  warm,  did  not 
palpably  impair  their  quality  for  second 
duty  in  the  stew,  which  was  the  family's  fa 
vorite  luxury. 

It  soon  became  the  rule  that  whoever  lost 
his  bait  in  the  bayou  must  content  himself 
with  gravy  for  dinner — gravy,  with,  of 
course,  his  share  of  the  crawfish. 


Fishing  for  the  day's  needs 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  189 

Needless  to  say,  matters  grew  worse. 
Henry  really  did  show  a  willingness  to  work, 
but  his  strong  and  shapely  hands  were  so 
distinctly  decorative  that  it  is  easy  to  believe 
that  they  were  best  fulfilling  their  design 
when  they  were  rearranging  Jane's  topknot 
or  picking  a  thorn  from  her  foot,  this  last 
act  being  somewhat  misleading  figuratively, 
perhaps,  although  taken  from  the  life. 

Not  that  Henry  really  did  not  help,  in 
his  own  way.  Indeed,  the  scoop-net  with 
which  the  children  landed  their  crawfish  was 
the  work  of  his  nimble  fingers,  and  when 
Jane  climbed  up  and  mended  the  roof,  did 
he  not  sit  faithfully  within  and  call  to  her, 
indicating  the  crevices  through  which  he 
saw  the  sky,  and  even  suggesting  several 
improvements  over  her  own  methods  of  lap 
ping  the  shingles  ?  Indeed,  he  told  the  chil 
dren  that  he  would  have  gone  up  and  tacked 
on  the  shingles  himself  but  for  the  fact  that 
his  "Junesey"  was  sech  a  particular  lady 


190  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

and  so  hard  to  please  that  he  knew  he  could 
never  suit  her. 

There  were  special  services  that  Henry 
performed,  however,  without  reserve  or 
question.  For  one  thing,  he  uncomplain 
ingly  carried  home  the  wash  for  his  ladye 
and  collected  her  money,  which  he  spent 
quite  paternally  for  the  benefit  of  the  entire 
family.  And,  indeed,  he  must  have  come 
into  the  breach  as  provider,  occasionally, 
for  certainly  the  few  chickens  that  some 
times  roosted  in  a  corner  of  the  sleeping- 
room,  laid  an  occasional  egg  on  the  bed,  and 
picked  up  a  precarious  living  at  large,  must 
have  been  brought  in  by  his  hand,  for  they 
generally  appeared  after  one  of  his  absences 
between  setting  and  rising  suns  "in  the  dark 
o'  the  moon,"  the  time  when  it  is  proverbi 
ally  good  luck  to  move  poultry. 

But  Henry's  special  talents — after  his 
ingratiatory  gifts,  of  course — were  those  of 
the  huntsman  and  the  fisher.  The  opportu- 
I 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  191 

nities  to  indulge  the  first  were  enough  to 
tempt  him,  but  unfortunately  he  had  neither 
gun  nor  dog,  but  he  did  add  to  the  family 
pot  once  in  a  while  with  his  rod  and  line. 
The  only  trouble  about  his  fishing  was  that 
the  places  where  perch  and  saccolet  were 
known  to  bite  were  so  far  from  his  beloved 
that  he  could  rarely  make  up  his  mind  to 
go:  he  was  a  poor  pedestrian,  and  when  he 
did  go,  she  always  idealized  his  self-sacrifice 
and  expressed  the  same  by  laying  the  best 
of  his  catch  upon  his  plate. 

Since  his  connection  with  her  household 
had  not  arrested  the  decline  in  its  fortunes 
at  the  critical  moment  when  a  strong  hand 
might  have  saved  the  situation,  it  is  not 
likely  that  it  would  have  stayed  the  hand  of 
misfortune  even  had  it  continued. 

But  poor  Henry  came  to  a  sudden  and 
untimely  end  in  Jane's  service.  One  day  he 
went  out  with  hook  and  line,  carrying  the 
best  of  the  family  provisions  done  up  in  a 


192  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

tin  pail  for  his  dinner,  and  he  did  not  come 
back. 

The  last  Jane  ever*  saw  of  him  was  at  the 
turn  of  the  bayou  where  it  led  through  the 
wood.  Here  he  had  stopped  and,  looking 
back,  doffed  his  fragment  of  a  hat  to  his 
lady-love  and  suddenly  disappeared  in  the 
oak-grove.  For  a  day  or  two,  seeing  that 
he  did  not  return,  and  having  no  reason  to 
suspect  disaster,  Jane  was  a  wee  bit  distrust 
ful  of  her  mate,  and  she  crooned  a  pathetic 
wavering  plaint  down  in  her  throat — a 
plaint  in  which  she  told  her  tubs  that  she 
had  "lost  heart,"  and  it  was  not  until  poor 
Henry's  body  was  found,  half-sunken  in  a 
pool  beside  a  basket  of  dead  fish,  that  she 
recovered  her  heart,  only  to  declare  it 
broken. 

In  his  eagerness  to  secure  her  favorite 
fish — as  well  as  his  own — he  had  ventured 
alone  into  the  marshes  where  the  quicksands 
were.  Of  course,  if  he  had  been  a  native  of 


Thanksgiving  on  Craw  fish  Bayou  193 

the  place  he  would  have  known  better,  but 
how  could  a  "Tuckapaw  nigger"  know  the 
hidden  dangers  of  innocent-faced  little 
Bayou  Crapaud? 

Henry's  funeral  was  a  great  event  in  col 
ored  circles,  even  beyond  the  bayou  cabin 
which  it  brought  into  sudden  prominence, 
for  Henry  had  been  a  chief  exhorter  in 
Mount  Zion  chapel  and  an  officer  in  its 
"Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Widows  and 
Orphans,"  an  organization  whose  chief  and 
obvious  provision  was  for  funerals. 

It  was  a  proud  moment  for  the  children 
when  the  plumed  hearse  stood  before  the 
cabin  door  and  when  they  were  all  helped 
into  the  single  carriage  which  followed  it — 
the  society's  accommodation  for  its  "fam 
ilies  of  the  diseased" — and  they  moved 
away  at  the  head  of  a  procession  of  men 
with  badges  and  women  in  capes  and  poke- 
bonnets,  all  keeping  step  to  the  music  of  a 
brass-band. 


194  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

Indeed,  it  was  a  proud  moment  for  poor 
Jane  also,  even  in  her  bereavement — for 
she  was  really  sorely  bereft  in  this  sudden 
clipping  of  her  romance  in  its  full  flower.  It 
was  the  only  one  of  her  life  that  had  suf 
fered  no  diminution,  the  others  having  all 
gone  out  by  a  gradual  diminuendo  scale. 

How  much  of  life's  glamour  might  be  con 
served  if  fate  always  knew  just  when  to 
bring  in  the  funerals  !  Perhaps  the  overdue 
death  is  responsible  for  more  of  its  hopeless 
sorrows  than  the  universally  lamented  "un 
timely  removals"? 

For  the  rest  of  her  days  Jane  firmly  be 
lieved  that  in  Henry  Clay  she  had  realized 
the  ideal  love  of  her  life. 

Even  though  it  was  lonely  and  forlorn 
enough  in  the  little  crowded  cabin  after  the 
funeral,  Jane's  life  was  palpably  enriched 
in  the  experience.  In  the  first  place — first 
to  her  in  the  freshness  of  her  sorrow — she 
had  found  in  it  the  handclasp  of  sympathy. 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  195 

The  funeral  oration,  delivered  at  the  open 
grave,  had  dignified  her  with  a  prerogative 
of  grief.  Even  the  children,  dressed  in 
scraps  of  mourning  contributed  for  the  oc 
casion  by  the  society,  had  gotten  their 
quota  of  sympathy  in  copious  allusions 
to  their  "orphaned"  condition.  Indeed, 
through  this  accentuation  of  the  bond,  it 
happened  that,  paradoxically,  it  was  the 
only  transient  head  of  the  family  who  had 
left  no  representative  within  it,  who  was 
revered  as  "daddy"  to  the  whole  lot  through 
out  the  rest  of  their  lives. 

Between  Clay  and  the  children  the  early 
bond  had  strengthened  with  daily  comrade 
ship.  He  had  been  uniformly  genial  and 
kindly,  even  patient  manv  times  under  pres 
sure,  and  his  adaptable  nature  had  lent  it 
self  to  their  innocent  amusements  with  a 
playful  ardor  somewhat  rare  in  adults  of 
normal  mind,  even  in  the  tender  condescen 
sion  of  bona-flde  parentage. 


196  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

Indeed,  between  him  and  Jane's  youngest  a 
particularly  affectionate  relationship  sprang 
up  in  the  long  hours  of  the  sultry  afternoons 
while  they  slept  side  by  side  on  the  grassy 
bank  of  the  bayou  under  the  trees,  and  many 
a  time,  seeing  the  two  restless  from  the  an 
noyance  of  gnats  or  mosquitos,  Jane  had 
left  her  tubs  to  fetch  a  bit  of  mosquito-net 
ting  which  she  spread  over  their  faces. 
Sometimes  it  was  necessary  to  bring  the  two 
closer  together  within  the  compass  of  the 
net,  and  in  this  case  she  would  roll  Henry 
over  bodily  with  her  foot.  The  baby  was 
apt  to  waken  and  fret  if  he  were  disturbed, 
but  Henry's  snoring  would  be  interrupted 
for  a  moment  only,  even  when  she  was 
obliged  to  waken  him. 

Even  before  the  tragedy  which  jolted  her 
somewhat  roughly  into  a  realization  of  her 
depleted  strength,  Jane  had  been  many  days 
far  from  strong.  Sometimes  she  had  even 
been  obliged  to  leave  undone  part  of  tin 


Thanksgiving  on  Craw  fish  Bayou  197 

allotted  task,  and  now  she  soon  came  to 
realize  that  she  was  never  quite  well.  So, 
with  scarce  the  tempering  weight  of  mid- 
life  upon  her,  there  came  a  sudden  sinking 
to  the  lower  condition  of  those  who  do  not 
rally  and  must  needs  accept  the  adverse  will 
of  fate. 

Even  before  the  water  of  the  bayou  was 
finally  condemned  as  unfit  for  laundry  pur 
poses  and  that  which  she  caught  in  a  cask 
from  the  roof  had  proven  even  worse  in 
color,  Jane  had  known  that  she  must  soon 
forsake  her  tubs  and  depend  for  each  day's 
provision  upon  chance  or  the  offerings  of 
the  season. 

There  were  some  very  important  things 
which  were  to  be  had  free  for  the  gathering. 
There  was  firewood,  for  instance,  which  even 
the  children  could  bring  in,  even  though  they 
were  obliged  to  fetch  it  from  lengthening 
distances.  Then  there  were  the  various  vol 
unteer  growths  known  as  "greens,"  such  as 


198  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

"lamb's  quarter,"  and  "pusley,"  and  even 
thistle  stalks — a  good  dish  any  one  of  these 
or  all  combined,  boiled  with  a  sliver  of  ba 
con  for  seasoning.  And  there  were  other 
volunteer  crops  which  would  always  com 
mand  a  market.  The  blackberry  season  was 
not  long,  but  it  was  profitable  while  it  lasted, 
and  even  more  so  was  the  mushroom  crop 
which  one  of  the  children  discovered  in  an 
old  pasture  beyond  the  berry-patches. 

Peddling  was  not  quite  so  easy  as  it 
seemed  at  first,  and  even  while  she  rejoiced 
in  its  cash  returns  Jane  found  herself  weary 
and  short  of  breath  many  days  before  her 
basket  was  empty,  and  there  soon  arrived  a 
morning  when,  even  after  she  was  entirely 
ready  to  start,  she  suddenly  knew  that  she 
would  not  be  able  to  walk  the  distance  from 
bayou  to  town  in  the  mud,  and  she  stood 
quite  still  for  some  moments,  looking  absently 
into  space. 

Then  she  slowly  lowered  her  basket,  took 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  199 

from  her  head  the  roll  with  which  she  had 
held  it  in  place,  and  sat  down  in  her  door. 
And  presently  she  called  her  children  and 
bade  them  stand  in  line  before  her. 

It  was  hard  for  her  to  decide  which  one  of 
the  six  she  might  best  trust  to  find  his  way 
and  to  peddle  the  berries.  The  children 
saw  that  something  unusual  was  on  her 
mind,  and  they  rather  expected  from  her 
serious  face  that  she  was  going  to  talk  to 
them  about  Henry,  and  death,  and  about 
being  good  children,  and  so  they  stood  off 
from  her  in  mystified  silence. 

She  had  been  somewhat  different  to  them 
since  Henry's  death,  sometimes  talking  in  a 
way  that,  while  it  brought  them  nearer  in 
affection,  set  them  apart,  wondering. 

The  question  of  which  one  to  send  was 
quickly  settled  by  the  children  themselves, 
each  of  whom,  excepting  the  youngest,  in 
sisting  that  he  knew  better  than  all  the 

others  how  to  peddle  berries. 
12 


200  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

She  had  not  thought  of  sending  them  all, 
but  it  was  a  comfortable  solution  of  the  dif 
ficulty.  One  knew  the  way,  another  could 
count  money..  The  twins  took  care  of 
each  other.  Indeed,  for  that  matter,  each 
one  of  the  six  could  look  after  every  other 
one,  and  certainly  the  whole  lot  could  not  be 
lost.  She  tried  to  avoid  sending  the  young 
est,  but  his  three-year-old  lungs  and  arms 
were  too  much  for  her  resisting  power  and 
she  was  obliged  to  yield. 

When  all  the  brood  had  gone — the  first 
time  in  many  years  that  she  was  left  abso 
lutely  alone — she  felt  that  the  very  darkest 
hour  of  her  life  had  arrived,  but  she  was 
very  weary,  and  having  no  demands  upon 
her,  she  fell  asleep. 

She  must  have  slept  all  day,  for  the  sun 
was  low  when  she  was  roused  by  the  chil 
dren's  voices,  and  she  had  no  recollection  of 
anything  since  morning  excepting  a  visit 
from  Henry,  who  had  stood  waving  to  her  at 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  203 

the  bayou's  turn  just  as  he  had  done  on  the 
memorable  last  day  of  his  life,  and  seeing 
that  she  had  not  come  to  answer  his  signal, 
he  had  started  back  to  say  good-by  over 
again. 

She  was  sure  that  the  footsteps  she 
heard  approaching  were  his  until  she  dis 
cerned  the  young  voices,  and  in  a  minute  she 
was  wide  awake  and  the  six  were  almost 
pitching  over  each  other  to  deliver  into  her 
hands  the  small  coins  which  they  carried. 
Each  little  brown  fist  had  brought  her  one 
or  more,  and  all  the  six  tongues  were  going 
at  once,  recounting  the  day's  adventure. 

Jane  never  knew  just  how  it  happened, 
but  it  always  seemed  afterward  that  the  tide 
of  fortune  had  turned  for  her  while  she 
slept  in  the  doorway  that  autumn  day.  Not 
that  prosperity  had  floated  in  on  high 
waves,  but  while  everything  had  gone  out 
before,  from  this  time  on  there  was  an  in 
coming  tide. 


204  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

This  initial  step  in  bread-winning  was  the 
dawning  of  a  new  day  for  the  children  as 
well  as  for  poor  Jane.  They  had  soon  re 
covered  from  a  native  diffidence  and  easily 
found  their  tongues  in  the  presence  of  stran 
gers. 

Nor  were  they  long  in  discovering  that 
a  very  small  pickaninny  can  hold  an  aston 
ishingly  tall  horse  or  cut  a  great  pile  of 
grass  from  the  sidewalk  for  a  coin  that,  if 
it  matched  in  size  the  boy  rather  than  the 
task,  was  still  well  worth  the  earning.  And 
they  had  soon  realized  the  much  more  im 
portant  abstract  truth  that  they  were  them 
selves  objects  of  amiable  regard  in  general, 
and  that  there  was  room  and  to  spare  for 
such  as  they  in  the  great  world  where  there 
are  always  so  many  little  things  needing  to 
be  done. 

During  the  days  when  Jane  sat  alone  in 
her  cabin — there  were  not  many  of  these 
days,  but  there  were  a  few — while  the  chil- 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  205 

dren  went  berrying  or  peddling  without  her, 
she  did  her  first  abstract  thinking — the  very 
first  thinking  that  had  no  conscious  material 
issue.  It  was  from  her  doorway  as  she  sat 
alone  that,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  she 
realized  the  sky  as  sky  and  knew  that  it  was 
blue. 

Many  a  time  she  had  studied  it  before, 
certainly,  but  always  with  a  view  to  its 
promise  as  affecting  her  work  or  her  plea 
sure.  It  had  been  either  "clair"  or  "fixin' 
to  rain" — fit  for  drying  or  bleaching,  plant 
ing  or  fishing,  or  not  fit.  A  changing  "mack 
erel  sky"  or  "a  rainy  moon,"  explained  why 
her  shoulder  ached,  or  why  her  soap  did  not 
"set."  Thunder  out  of  a  clear  sky  would 
make  a  setting  of  eggs  go  wrong  and  sour 
the  milk. 

She  had  not  much  imagination  even  in 
these  days  of  physical  depletion  and  spir 
itual  stirring,  but  she  wondered  vaguely  over 
the  mysteries  of  life  and  death,  and  her 


206  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

thoughts,  detached  from  earth,  took  ques 
tioning  shape  on  a  background  of  cerulean 
infinity. 

When  first  her  eyes  found  the  sky — that 
is,  when  they  realized  the  azure  space — she 
saw  upon  it,  whichever  way  her  eyes  might 
turn,  the  misty  outline  of  her  lover — her 
lover  who  had  figuratively  been  here  yester 
day  and  was  there  to-day. 

But  after  a  while  this  vision  faded  and  she 
saw  only  the  blue  again,  and  she  realized — 
though  of  course  she  did  not  realize  it  in  the 
stately  English  of  the  Elizabethan  period — 
that  there  were  more  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  than  she  had  hitherto  dreamed  of  in 
her  philosophy. 

She  knew  dimly,  though  she  would  have 
denied  it  even  to  herself,  that  her  weakness 
was  a  vital  break  and  that  she  would  not  be 
strong  again.  She  knew,  when  the  "visiting 
ladies"  of  one  of  the  "white  churches"  came 
to  see  her,  bringing  parcels  of  old  clothing 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  207 

and  medicine  and  tracts  which  Jane  told 
them  she  could  read  although  she  did  not 
know  her  letters — she  knew  they  considered 
her  ill  and  not  likely  to  get  well,  but  even  this 
she  rebelliously  concealed  from  her  stubborn 
self.  She  appropriated  the  clothing  they 
brought,  lit  her  pipe  with  the  tracts,  and 
the  medicine  she  generously  administered 
to  any  of  the  children  who  might  be  ailing, 
with  a  fine  disregard  of  its  character  or 
the  prescribed  quantity. 

She  was  feeling  pretty  blue  on  the  evening 
when  the  children  brought  in  the  news  of 
approaching  Thanksgiving — blue  and  re 
bellious — and  when  she  heard  the  word  she 
began  to  repeat  it  aloud  as  if  she  were  try 
ing  to  place  it. 

"Thanksgivin' !  You  don'  say !  Thanks- 
givin' !"  It  was  in  the  evening  after  supper, 
and  she  sat  with  them  in  the  doorway.  She 
was  rising  to  go  to  bed  when  the  word  fell 
upon  her  ear,  but  she  sat  down  again.  The 


208  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

suggestion  transported  her  at  a  bound  into 
the  far  past. 

"Come  set  down  in  the  door,  chillen,"  she 
said  presently.  "You  say  to-morrer  's 
Thanksgivin' !  Come  set  down  and  lis'n  at 
me  while  I  tell  yer  about  Thanksgivin'  in  de 
ole  days — in  de  ole  slave  days  on  the  planta 
tion — when  we- all  had  to  git  up  an'  work  ef 
we  was  well  an'  ef  we  was  sick  we  stayed  in 
bed — when  Thanksgivin'  dinner  come  to  all 
alike — sick  or  well,  workin'  or  no  workin'." 

Her  tone  was  bitter  when  she  began,  but 
as  she  proceeded,  describing  the  affluence 
and  bounty  of  the  old  days,  she  finally  lost 
the  sense  of  contrast  and  warmed  to  her  sub 
ject  until  the  story  was  like  a  tale  from 
fairy-land  to  the  listening  children. 

It  was  an  hour  beyond  the  usual  bedtime 
when  she  finally  brought  the  reminiscences 
to  an  end,  and  the  little  cabin  would  have 
been  quite  dark  but  for  the  full  moon  which 
lit  a  path  quite  through  it  over  the  heads  of 
Jane  and  the  children  in  the  doorway.  She 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  209 

was  about  rising  again  when  little  Jane, 
her  second  child,  said,  "An'  we-all  ain't 
never  gwine  have  no  Thanksgivin',  is  we, 
mammy  ?" 

"No!"  Jane  fairly  snapped.  "Cert'nly 
not ;  what  we  gwine  have  Thanksgivin'  fer  ?" 

"What  did  dey  have  it  fer  in  de  long-ago 
time?"  asked  another. 

"Dey  had  it  jes  to  give  thanks  to  Gord 
A'mighty.  Dat  what  dey  had  it  fer.  Any 
body  dat  's  got  a  flounced  frock  to  dance  in, 
an'  music  to  dance  by,  an'  somebody  to 
dance  wid,  an'  a  good  supper  to  eat 
when  they  git  th'ough  dancin',  kin 
keep  Thanksgivin'!  Dat  's  de  onies  way 
we-all  kep'  it.  Ef  yer  wants  to  keep 
Thanksgivin'  you  got  to  have  two  things — 
someth'n'  to  be  thankful  fer  an'  someth'n' 
to  be  thankful  wid.9' 

"An'  we  ain't  got  nair  one,  is  we, 
mammy  ?" 

"No !" 

"  'T  would  n't  do  to  keep  Thanksgivin' 


210  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

on  account  o'  dem  ole  frocks  dat  white 
'oman  fetched  sissy  an'  me,  would  it, 
mammy?  Dey  ain't  no  flounces  to  'em  nor 
nothin'." 

"Dey  got  a  ribbon  bow  on  de  neck  o' 
mine.  I  don'  see  nothin'  agin  dat  fer 
Thanksgivin',"  said  the  youngest  sister. 
"An'  de  lady,  she  say  yer  don'  haf  to  keep 
Thanksgivin'  des  on  account  o'  what  yer 
got,  nohow.  She  says  deys  jes  blessings  to 
be  thankful  fer — blessin's  like — like — " 

"Like  what?" 

"Like,  well,  you,  mammy — an'  like — I 
dunno  what  to  say — like  a  heap  o'  things." 

"I  got  a  plenty  to  keep  Thanksgivin'  fer — 
but  I  ain't  got  nothin'  to  keep  it  wid"  said 
the  oldest  boy,  a  twelve-year-old  chap. 

"I  been  settin'  here  studyin',  an'  I  done 
studied  out  five  blessin's  we  got. 

"We  got  to  search  back'ards  to  find  bless 
in's,  sometimes,  an'  I  foun'  five.  We  ain't 
none  of  us  took  de  smallpox,  an'  it  's  goin' 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  211 

de  roun's — dat  's  one  blessin'  —  an'  six  o' 
Muffly's  chickens  turned  out  to  be  pullets 
an'  dey  gwine  lay  eggs  fer  us — dat  's  two 
blessin's  ef  it  ain't  seven — an'  —  an'  Buddy's 
measles  did  n't  turn  out  to  be  blind  measles 
— dat  's  three  blessin's.  What  is  blind 
measles,  anyhow,  mammy?" 

"Blind  measles?  Dey  jes  measles  wha' 
don'  come  out,  dat  's  all.  Eve'y  little  measle 
is  de  same  as  a  eye,  an'  when  dey  don'  brek 
out,  dey  calls  'em  blind  measles — an'  blind 
measles,  dey  li'ble  to  kill  yer." 

"Dat  what  I  say,  so  dat  's  three  blessin's 
—  an' — I  don'  forgot  what  de  y ether  two 
was.  Oh,  yas,  I  know;  one  was  a  beauti- 
fullest  blessin'.  It  was,  we  found  daddy — 
an'  had  de  fun'al!  Ain't  dat  a  blessin'?" 

«Ah-h-h!  Well,  I  should  sesso!"  ex 
claimed  the  crowd.  "We  would  n't  'a'  got 
no  ride  nor  had  no  music,  nor  nothin'." 

"No — an'  we  would  n't  'a'  had  no  clo'es 
by  dis  time,  I  don't  reckon.  Dem  ladies 


212  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

foun'  we-all  out  by  de  fun'al — an'  brung  us 
all  we  got — but  dey  's  another  blessin'  yit, 
I  was  studyin'  over,  but  I  clair  forgits  what 
it  is." 

Jane  had  been  growing  restless  for  some 
time,  and  she  had  risen  to  her  feet  and  was 
standing  outside  the  door,  the  white  moon 
light  full  upon  her.  She  had  not  answered 
the  children  for  some  time,  but  it  was  not 
from  lack  of  interest.  The  truth  was,  she 
was  fairly  stifled  with  emotion.  She  had 
coughed  almost  constantly  all  day,  and  she 
had  not  been  strong  enough  to  stand  the 
strain  of  the  painful  retrospect.  All  her 
bitterness  had  suddenly  come  back  to  her, 
and  she  saw  the  utter  hopelessness  of  her 
condition  as  she  had  not  seen  it  before.  She 
knew,  as  she  had  not  clearly  known,  that 
her  days  were  numbered,  and  her  mental 
agony  was  almost  more  than  she  could  bear. 

Seeing  that  none  of  the  suggested  bless 
ings  seemed  to  make  any  impression  upon 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  213 

her,  one  of  the  children  finally  said  tenta 
tively  : 

"An5  mammy,  we  got  freedom.     Ain't  dat 


"Yaas,  you  —  got  —  freedom,"  she  re 
peated  mechanically.  "You  got  freedom  — 
sech  as  it  is." 

Then,  suddenly  firing,  she  raised  arms 
and  face  to  heaven,  and  presently  she  ex 
claimed  : 

"Yaas,  chillen,  dat  's  true.  You  got  free 
dom—  freedom—  FREEDOM!  Bless  Gord 
fer  freedom—  ANY  HO  W!'" 

Over  and  over  she  repeated  the  words, 
striding  with  arms  upraised,  up  and  down 
before  the  cabin  door.  Then  presently  she 
stopped,  and  looking  down  upon  the  group, 
and  lowering  her  tone  so  that  it  awed  them  t 

"Listen,  chillen  !"  she  cried,  "yer  mammy 
got  to  talk  to  yer  sometime  —  an'  she  mought 
as  well  talk  to  yer  to-night  —  an'  she  wants 
jou  to  listen  good  —  an'  don't  forgit. 


214  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

"You  see  dat  white  moon  shinin'  in  de  firma- 
mint?  Dat  's  de  light  f'om  above,  an'  it 
comes  straight  f'om  heaven,  an'  hit  's  de 
same  as  de  eye  o'  Gord  lookin'  down  on  we- 
all  to-night — an'  ef  we  looks  at  it  straight, 
maybe  Gord  '11  show  us  how  to  read  our  title 
clair" — this  was  to  herself  rather  than 
to  them. 

"An'  wid  it  shinin'  all  over  us,  I  wants 
to  talk  to  yer.  I  wants  to  tell  yer  dat  to- 
morrer  's  Thanksgivin'  Day,  an'  we  gwine 
keep  de  feast!  We  gwine  keep  Thanks 
givin'  in  de  cabin  ef  we  live,  so  when  I  'm 
gone,  y'-all  kin  recollec'  dat  yo'  mammy 
set  de  table  to  keep  Thanksgivin'  for  free 
dom!  Bless  Gord  to-night  for  my  free 
chillen!  Bless  Gord  dat  when  dey  go  out 
an'  earn  a  dime  dey  free  to  put  it  in  dey 
mammy's  hand ! 

"Bless  Gord  for  all  de  ole  half-wo'e-out 
frocks  de  s'ciety  ladies  fetches  in  to  he'p 
my  free  chillen  teF  dey  git  a  start!  Bless 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  217 

Gord  for  de  courage  He  gi'e  me  to  talk  to 
my  little  chillen — in  de  white  moonlight,  to 
night.  Yaas,  babies,  we  is  got  someth'n'  to 
keep  Thanksgivin'  for — 

"But  what  is  we  got  to  keep  it  wid?"  a 
timid  voice  asked. 

"We  '11  keep  it  wid  what  dey  is!  Ef  Gord 
A'mighty  looks  down  on  us  He  can't  requi'e 
us  to  set  de  Thanksgivin'  table  wid  what  we 
ain't  got.  Y'-all  git  up  soon  in  de  mornin' 
an'  ketch  a-plenty  o'  crawfish,  an'  mammy  '11 
inek  a  pot  o'  bisque  for  yer,  an'  one  o'  dem 
pullets  '11  go  in  de  stewpan,  layin'  or  no 
layin',  an'  I  '11  whup  up  some  eggs  an' 
molasses  an'  sweet  potaters  into  a  puddin' 
— an'  y'-all  kin  fetch  some  o'  dem  yaller 
niggerheads  an'  wild  roses  for  de  table  an' 
we  '11  shame  de  devil  in  crawfish  cabin  to- 
morrer!  Yaas,  chillen,  I  say  it  ag'in: 
'Bless  Gord  fer  freedom— ANYHOW!9  " 

She  was  by  this  very  much  exhausted, 
so  that  she  was  obliged  to  stop  and  gain 


218  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

breath,  for  she  had  not  finished.  The  chil 
dren  had  been  much  impressed  by  her 
dramatic  manner,  but  as  soon  as  she  entered 
into  the  detail  of  the  proposed  feast,  they 
had  all  begun  talking  at  once,  but  she 
silenced  them  with  an  imperative  gesture. 

"Sh !  Hush,  chillen,"  she  began,  "hush, 
an'  listen.  I  ain't  done  yit.  To-morrer  is 
gwine  be  a  happy  day — an'  to-night  must  n't 
spile  to-morrer,  but  yo'  mammy  's  boun'  to 
talk  to  yer.  You  see  dis  moonlight?  Well, 
some  day — maybe  soon  an'  maybe  a  long 
time  comin',  but  some  day,  shore — mammy  's 
gwine  up  yander  whar  de  moon  an'  stars 
is—" 

"An'  daddy  ?"  one  of  the  little  ones  inter 
rupted.  She  hesitated  a  moment.  And 
then  she  answered: 

"An'  peace,  chillen — an'  rest — an'  de 
Father's  face  in  de  heavenly  mansions.  An' 
I  pray  Gord  when  I  git  dar  to  please,  Sir, 
lemme  lay  down  on  a  sof  mansion-bed  an' 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  219 

sleep.  Yo'  mammy  's  mighty  tired,  chillen. 
An'  of  co'se,  when  I  once-t  goes,  I  can't 
come  back  no  mo',  so  I  'm  a-talkin'  now, 
babies. 

"Dat  ole  white  lady  wha'  brung  y'-all 
dem  clo'es,  she  's  a  good  'oman,  an'  las'  time 
I  walked  into  town  I  called  in  an'  stopped 
to  talk  wid  'er.  She  's  a  s'ciety  lady 
workin'  on  de  Lord's  side — I  done  proved 
her,  an'  ef  I  was  to  pass  up  sudden — " 

At  this  the  older  children  began  to  cry, 
and  seeing  their  tears,  Jane  laughed  and 
veered,  declaring  that  she  had  been  only 
fooling,  while  she  reverted  again  to  the  com 
ing  dinner. 

JANE'S  Thanksgiving  table  was  the  first  she 
ever  set  in  the  bayou  cabin.  It  had  been 
the  family  habit  to  eat  almost  anywhere, 
the  children  generally  taking  their  tin  plates 
in  their  laps  or  often  even  carrying  them 
out  on  the  grass,  when  they  used  plates  at 

13 


220  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

all,  and  so  the  table  with  its  center  decora 
tion  of  flowers  instantly  dignified  the  occa 
sion  as  a  festive  event. 

Jane  had  sent  the  older  children  into 
town  early  in  the  day,  recklessly  giving 
them  several  of  the  few  dimes  in  her  pocket 
to  spend  for  the  "biggest  watermelon  they 
could  tote,"  and  when  she  had  cut  it  into 
long  slices  and  arranged  them  so  that 
emanating  from  the  bouquet  they  should 
form  a  star  each  of  whose  points  almost 
touched  the  plate  for  which  it  was  intended, 
the  children's  delight  knew  no  bounds.  They 
could  not  sit  in  rags  at  such  a  table  as  this, 
and  so,  after  washing  their  feet  in  the  bayou, 
they  arrayed  themselves  in  all  that  there 
was  of  finery  in  the  cabin;  some  of  it  was 
tolerably  good  finery,  too,  albeit  it  was 
second-hand,  and  more  or  less  eccentric  as 
to  fit. 

When  the  feast  was  ready  and  they  all 
stood  around  the  table,  some  one  proposed 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  221 

a  dance,  and  before  Jane  could  voice  her 
protest  that  they  could  not  dance  without 
music,  the  whole  six  had  struck  up  a  tune, 
some  pounding  the  table  with  forks  imita 
ting  drums,  and  others  simulating  the  wind 
instruments  of  a  brass-band,  of  which  they 
gave  so  inspiring  an  imitation  that  Jane, 
fired  with  the  spirit  of  fun,  suddenly  caught 
up  the  edges  of  her  skirts  and  began  to 
glide  through  the  figures  of  an  old  planta 
tion  dance,  turning  with  many  a  bow  and 
smirk  from  one  to  another,  and  presently 
calling  one  out  and  another  to  dance  with 
her. 

It  was  a  great  time,  if  it  was  brief,  and 
when  Jane  finally  stopped  she  was  so  dizzy 
that  she  had  to  grasp  the  table  for  support, 
and  her  lips  were  ashen,  but  her  eyes  shone 
like  stars. 

When  presently  they  were  seated,  Jane 
took  the  spoon  from  the  soup-bowl  and,  hesi 
tating  a  minute,  laid  it  down  again. 


222  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

"In  Thanksgivin'  dinners,  chillen,"  she 
said  awkwardly,  "somebody  is  'bleeged  to 
give  thanks.  Yo'  mammy  ain'  no  hand  to 
pray,  but—  Hoi'  up  yo'  faces,  chillen, 
an'  shet  yo'  eyes." 

She  raised  her  own  face  as  she  spoke,  not 
closing  her  eyes  but  looking  with;  them  in 
tently  as  if  imploring  divine  aid,  and  then 
she  lifted  her  arms  and  in  a  low,  half-fright 
ened  voice  she  almost  whispered : 

"Bless — Gord  —  fer  —  freedom  —  anyhow. 
Amen" 

The  Thanksgiving  dinner  was  by  far  the 
greatest  event  of  their  lives  to  the  children. 
Indeed,  even  the  funeral  sank  into  insignifi 
cance  beside  it.  It  was  so  unlike  anything 
in  their  previous  experience  that  it  seemed 
almost  unreal,  as  if  it  might  be  a  dream 
from  which  they  would  suddenly  waken. 
Even  their  mother  was  not  at  all  like  her 
self,  and  more  than  once  the  older  ones, 
catching  one  another  looking  at  her,  had 
exchanged  glances. 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  223 

She  ate  little,  barely  tasting  the  food  as 
if  for  form's  sake,  and  when  she  saw  that 
the  children  were  nearly  done,  she  slipped 
away,  throwing  herself  down  upon  her  bed 
in  the  other  room.  It  had  been  her  habit 
of  late  to  take  naps  during  the  afternoons 
and  so  nothing  was  thought  of  this ;  and  in 
deed,  when,  before  they  had  risen,  several 
ladies  came  in  laden  with  parcels,  and  they 
recognized  among  them  their  friend  of  the 
"Helpers"  society,  they  would  have  called 
their  mother  to  see  them  but  that  she  ob 
jected. 

They  knew  better  than  the  children  that 
their  mother  was  ill  and  needed  any  rest  she 
sought. 

The  table  had  still  the  festive  air  of  a 
feast,  but  there  was  something  almost 
pathetic  in  the  absence  of  anything  like 
fragments.  Indeed,  but  for  the  melon-rind, 
a  few  chicken  bones  and  crawfish  heads,  it 
would  have  held  no  hint  of  the  nature  of  the 
meal. 


224  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

The  children  had  not  been  consciously 
unsatisfied,  not  having  the  habit  of  eating 
to  fullness,  and  being  somewhat  deceived  by 
the  ocular  proof  that  they  had  devoured 
everything  in  sight,  but  the  avidity  with 
which  they  made  way  with  the  slices  of  pie 
and  the  oranges  and  bananas  that  found 
their  way  from  the  visitors'  baskets  to  their 
plates  told  rather  a  pitiful  story.  There 
were  other  things  in  the  baskets  besides  food, 
a  few  articles  of  dress  finding  new  owners 
around  the  table,  and  others  being  laid  aside 
for  the  sick  woman. 

The  visitors  were  evidently  surprised  to 
find  any  celebration  of  the  day  in  the  cabin, 
and,  indeed,  they  had  feared  that  Jane 
might  be  in  bed,  and  had  brought  some  wine 
for  her.  For  a  time  they  were  quite  mysti 
fied  by  the  whole  affair,  which  was  alto 
gether  out  of  keeping  with  the  woman  as  they 
knew  her,  but  when  the  whole  story  finally 
came  out,  told  by  the  lot,  one  supplement- 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  225 

ing  another  and  adding  corrections  here 
and  there  until  nothing  was  forgotten  from 
the  talk  in  the  moonlight  the  night  before 
to  the  grace  at  table,  they  understood ;  and 
after  they  had  talked  until  it  was  growing 
late,  during  which  Jane  had  continued  to 
sleep,  one  of  the  ladies,  thinking  to  revive 
her,  proposed  taking  her  a  glass  of  wine. 

She  remained  some  minutes  in  the  room 
before  she  called  one  of  her  companions, 
and  in  a  little  while  the  two  summoned  a  third 
to  join  them,  and  when  the  children  would 
have  followed,  one  of  the  ladies  turned  back 
and  led  them  out  into  the  open  before  the 
hut. 

The  days  are  short  in  November,  and  at 
five  o'clock  the  stars  were  out  faint  but 
thick  as  diamond  dust  in  the  blue  above 
crawfish  cabin. 

In  a  little  while  the  visiting  ladies 
joined  the  group  of  children  and  they  sat 
together,  the  children  fetching  chairs  from 


226  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

the  table,  while  some  preferred  to  sit  upon 
the  grass. 

Invited  to  repeat  the  Thanksgiving  story, 
they  went  over  it  all  again  from  the  begin 
ning,  even  to  the  way  their  mammy  had 
looked  and  behaved  when  she  spoke  of  going 
up  to  where  the  stars  were. 

So  their  friends  led  them  on,  over  and 
over  the  ground,  hoping  to  find  a  way  to 
tell  them  how  things  were.  Looking  into  the 
very  sky  whose  peaceful,  star-lit  face  had 
invited  her  tired  spirit,  it  would  seem  as 
if  it  might  have  been  easy  to  tell  them  that 
even  then  perhaps  their  mother  was  looking 
down  upon  them,  happy  and  at  rest.  But 
these  things  are  never  easy. 

It  was  late,  and  the  bayou  road  was  grow 
ing  dark  when  finally  the  black-gowned  lady 
had  courage  to  say  that  she  wanted  the 
children  to  go  home  with  her  for  the  night, 
but  when  the  words  were  once  spoken  the 
rest  was  simple  enough.  Jane  had  not  had 


Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou  227 

a  drop  of  stupid  blood  in  her  body,  nor  was 
a  child  of  hers  slow  of  comprehension. 

Tears  and  wails  are  Nature's  best  vent 
for  the  sorrows  of  childhood,  and  when 
Jane's  orphaned  brood  had  wept  their  eyes 
dry  they  were  able,  even  on  this  first  night, 
while  they  walked  beside  their  new  friends 
and  nervously  clutched  their  hands,  to  look 
with  them  into  the  star-country  and  to  won 
der  what  it  might  mean  to  the  guest  who 
had  just  come  in. 

"Peace — rest — freedom"  —  all  these  she 
had  mentioned — "and  the  face  of  the  Father." 

"But  I  spec'  dat  right  now  she  ain't 
studyin'  'bout  nothin'  but  rest,"  said  little 
Jane,  the  second  daughter.  "I  reckon  she 
was  mighty  'stonished  when  she  wecked  up 
on  dat  heavenly  mansion-bed,  arter  layin' 
down  to  rest  'erse'f  on  dat  old  cabin  cot." 

"An'  when  she  gits  rested  good,  what  yer 
reckon  she  '11  study  'bout  fus'?"  This  was 
little  Jake's  question. 


228  Thanksgiving  on  Crawfish  Bayou 

"I  know  what  she  '11  study  about  fus'.  I 
don'  think  nothin'  't  all  about  it,"  said 
Ca'line,  the  oldest  girl.  "De  fus'  thing  she  '11 
do  '11  be  to  look  down  to  see  how  we-all  git- 
tin'  along,  and  ef  we  so  fur  down  she  can't 
'stinguish  us  I  spec'  she  '11  sen'  a  angel  to 
fin'  out  how  we  come  on,  an'  when  he  flies 
back  an'  tells  her  dat  we  's  gwine  home  wid 
de  committee  ladies  she  '11  say,  'Praise  Gord, 
dey  's  all  right!  An'  now,  Lord,  gimme 
freedom!9  Dat  what  she  '11  say." 


TO  BO  «*T« 

AY    AND    TO     $1  00     ON     THE  E  F°U«TH 

OVERDUE.  N     ™E    SEVENTH     DAY 


1933 


JAN  2  V 


LD  2l-50m-l,'33 


Stuart, Mr 
R.(HcE. 

Aunt   Am 


wedding 
1  1920 


IUL  14 


- 


. 

ty*s  silver 


UNI» 


955 

S932  .EY  LIBRARIE 

a 


raft  B       =120112 


JRARY 


